Maggie Gyllenhaal

• 1. Introduction

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  Maggie Gyllenhaal did not learn her own legal first name until 2013. The name on her birth certificate is Margalit, a Hebrew word that means pearl. She found this out when she took on her husband's surname, which turned the full name into Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal Sarsgaard. Some news stories have even spelled it Margolit. It is a small, strange twist for an actress known around the world by a shortened name. Her career has been full of turns like that one. It began with family productions and has led all the way to the director's chair. How does a child of filmmakers build a body of work that feels unmistakably her own? Why did she keep taking parts that critics called risky, odd or uncomfortable? And what changed when she stopped waiting for roles and began writing and directing them?

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• 2. Family Lines

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  On the 16th of November 1977, Maggie Gyllenhaal was born in Manhattan, the daughter of director and poet Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter and director Naomi Achs. Her younger brother Jake would become an actor too. A half-brother arrived later, from her father's second marriage.

  Her father belongs to the aristocratic Gyllenhaal family, which is of Swedish and English ancestry, and he was raised in the Swedenborgian religion. Her last native Swedish ancestor was her great-great-grandfather Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. He descended from Leonard Gyllenhaal, a leading Swedenborgian who supported the printing and spreading of Emanuel Swedenborg's writings.

  Her mother grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish family whose Ashkenazi roots lay in Russia and Poland. Before she married Stephen Gyllenhaal, her mother had been married to Eric Foner, a noted historian and professor at Columbia University. Maggie says she grew up "mostly Jewish, culturally" and identifies as Jewish, though she never attended Hebrew school. Her parents married in 1977 and filed for divorce in October 2008.

  She grew up in Los Angeles and studied at the Harvard-Westlake prep school. Along the way she spent four months at The Mountain School, a semester program for high school juniors in Vermont. After graduating in 1995 she moved to New York for Columbia University, where she studied literature and Eastern religions. One summer term took her to London, to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

  Her screen career had started well before college. At 15 she made a brief appearance in her father's film Waterland, released in 1992. Her father then directed her in supporting parts in A Dangerous Woman in 1993 and Homegrown in 1998, and Jake appeared in both. The two siblings and their mother also turned up together in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network.

  After college came supporting roles in Cecil B. Demented in 2000 and Riding in Cars with Boys in 2001. Then she won attention on her own terms in the indie cult favorite Donnie Darko, released in 2001. There she played the on-screen sister of her real-life brother. A very different part, in a 2002 black comedy, was about to ask far more of her.

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• 3. Secretary

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  "The role of Lee, which Maggie Gyllenhaal imbues with a restrained comic delicacy and sweetness, should make her a star." That was the verdict of Stephen Holden in The New York Times, reviewing the 2002 black comedy Secretary. The film follows two people who build a mutually fulfilling BDSM lifestyle. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called her character enigmatic and, at moments, sympathetic.

  The film drew generally favorable reviews. For Gyllenhaal it brought the National Board of Review's award for Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress. It also brought her first Golden Globe nomination and a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award.

  She almost did not take the part. Secretary was her first film role with full frontal nudity, and she worried the script could carry an anti-feminist message. She talked it through with director Steven Shainberg before agreeing to join. She insists he never exploited her, yet she has admitted to feeling "scared when filming began." She also said that "in the wrong hands... even in just slightly less intelligent hands, this movie could say something really weird."

  She has stayed guarded about the film ever since. Her only comment on its lingering effect is that "despite myself, sometimes the dynamic that you are exploring in your work spills over into your life."

  The role set a pattern for the years that followed. Offers kept coming, and she kept choosing parts that were hard to categorize.

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• 4. Restless Choices

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  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an unauthorized biography released in 2002, grossed US$33 million worldwide. Gyllenhaal was one small piece of an ensemble that included Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney and Julia Roberts. That same year she appeared in Adaptation, the story of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman struggling to adapt The Orchid Thief for the screen. She also took a small role in the comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights.

  In 2003 she co-starred with Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile, playing Giselle. She told The Daily Telegraph she wanted "to play somebody who feels confident in herself as a sexy, beautiful woman." Reviews were mostly mixed, and Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times called the film "smug and reductive."

  Smaller independent films followed. Casa de los Babys, from 2003, follows six American women stuck waiting out residency rules in a South American country before they can collect their adopted babies. Criminal, from 2004, is a remake of the Argentinian film Nine Queens. In it she plays an honest hotel manager who seduces one of her crooked brother's victims, to help him. John C. Reilly and Diego Luna co-starred.

  Then came the HBO film Strip Search, also in 2004. She played an American student in China who is suspected of terrorism, and the role required several scenes of full frontal nudity.

  The stage drew her back in the same year. Her theatrical debut had come in 2000 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, in Patrick Marber's Closer, which ran from May to mid-July and earned her favorable reviews. Playwright Tony Kushner then cast her in the Los Angeles production of his Homebody/Kabul, on the strength of that performance. She played Priscilla, a daughter who spends most of the play searching Kabul for her elusive mother. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote that she "provides the essential bridge between the parts of the play's title."

  She was also invited in 2004 to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Maxim magazine put her on its Hot 100 List in 2004 and again in 2005.

  In 2005 she played an adventuress singer in the comedy-drama Happy Endings. Her character seduces both a young gay musician, played by Jason Ritter, and his rich father, played by Tom Arnold. She recorded songs for the soundtrack and called it the "roughest, scariest acting ever." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly praised her as "wonderfully, naturally slouchy-sexy." The next year would be the busiest of her career so far.

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• 5. Sherrybaby to Gotham

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  Five Gyllenhaal films reached audiences in 2006, among them Trust the Man, Stranger than Fiction, Monster House, World Trade Center and Sherrybaby. In Trust the Man she played Elaine, who has dated Billy Crudup's Tobey for seven years and is ready to start a family. The film failed critically and financially. In Stranger than Fiction she played the love interest of Will Ferrell's Harold Crick, and reviews were favorable. In the animated horror film Monster House she supplied the voice of Elizabeth, known as Zee.

  Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, based on the September 11 attacks, gave her the part of Allison Jimeno, wife of Port Authority officer Will Jimeno. She counts it among the films she most enjoyed making. It earned US$162 million worldwide.

  Sherrybaby asked something else entirely. She played a young drug-addicted thief trying to straighten out her life after prison so she can win back her daughter. Describing the part, she said she looked for pleasure and hope in everything, even bleak things, and only felt the pain once filming was over. David Germain of the Associated Press wrote that she humanized the character so deeply that Sherry draws sympathy even at her weakest. The role earned her a second Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress and the Best Actress award at the 2006 Stockholm International Film Festival.

  In The Dark Knight, released in 2008, she replaced Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, Gotham City's assistant district attorney. Gyllenhaal admitted that Rachel was a damsel in distress to an extent. She said director Christopher Nolan looked for ways to empower the character, who is clear about what matters to her and refuses to compromise her morals. The film set a North American opening weekend record and earned $1 billion worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time. It remains her most commercially successful feature.

  Crazy Heart came next, in 2009. She played journalist Jean Craddock, who falls for the musician Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, and Bridges won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called her "funny, touching and vital as Jean." The performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

  That same year she also played a bohemian college professor in the comedy Away We Go.

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• 6. Stage and Small Screen

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  The Classic Stage Company's 2009 Off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya began previews on the 17th of January and closed its limited run on the 1st of March. Austin Pendleton directed. Gyllenhaal played Yelena Andreevna, alongside a cast that included her husband, Peter Sarsgaard. A critic at the New York Daily News was unenthusiastic about her slow saunter and pasted-on smile. Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant felt that she "ultimately blossoms" in the role.

  Between 2009 and 2010 she presented 13 episodes of the PBS series Independent Lens, which showcases documentaries by independent filmmakers. In 2010 she appeared in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang with Emma Thompson, playing Isabel Green with an English accent. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 76% from 119 critics, and it earned $93 million worldwide.

  Hysteria followed in 2011, a biographical romance about the creation of the vibrator in the Victorian era. Reviews were mixed. In February of that year she returned to Chekhov and Pendleton at the Classic Stage Company, as Masha in Three Sisters. Previews began on the 12th of January and the run ended on the 6th of March. Then came Won't Back Down in 2012, in which she played a mother caught up in a parent trigger takeover of a failing school. In 2013 she played a Secret Service agent in White House Down, which met mixed reviews and under-performed at the box office.

  In the 2014 musical comedy Frank, she played a musician in a bizarre band. She had initially turned the part down because she did not understand it, but the story stuck with her. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival that year. She also played Hathfertiti in River of Fundament, loosely based on Norman Mailer's 1983 novel Ancient Evenings. Her Broadway debut came in a revival of The Real Thing, in which she played Annie.

  The BBC miniseries The Honourable Woman gave her the lead as Baroness Nessa Stein, a British-Israeli businesswoman and heiress. Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast called her performance possibly the most towering and complex of her career. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film and received an Emmy nomination. The Guardian placed the series on its list of the 30 best television shows of 2014.

  In 2016 she narrated Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina for Audible, calling it "one of the major accomplishments of my work life." In 2018 she starred in The Kindergarten Teacher, a remake of a 2014 Israeli film, as a teacher obsessed with a student she believes is a prodigy. It premiered at Sundance and was distributed by Netflix. The Daily Telegraph gave it four stars out of five.

  From 2017 to 2019 she also produced and starred in the HBO drama The Deuce, playing Eileen "Candy" Merrell, a sex worker during the Golden Age of Porn. The role brought another Golden Globe nomination.

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• 7. Behind the Camera

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  At the 78th Venice International Film Festival in 2021, Gyllenhaal won the Best Screenplay Award for her first film as a director. The Lost Daughter was a psychological drama that she also produced and adapted from a novella by Elena Ferrante. Critics acclaimed it.

  The honors kept coming. At the 2021 Gotham Awards it won four prizes, including Best Feature and Breakthrough Director, and was nominated for one more. At the 79th Golden Globe Awards she was nominated for Best Director. She then received a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 75th British Academy Film Awards. A nomination for the same category at the 94th Academy Awards became the second Oscar nomination of her career.

  In 2026 she directed The Bride!, a 1930s-set adaptation of Frankenstein. Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley starred, with her husband Peter and her brother Jake also in the cast. The film performed poorly at the box office and drew lukewarm reviews.

  In February 2017 she had served on the jury of the Berlin Film Festival, which was chaired by Paul Verhoeven. In 2026 she was named president of the International Jury of the Competition at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, the same festival that had first honored her screenplay.

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• 8. Home and Convictions

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  Fashion houses have long wanted her face. Her advertising work began with Miu Miu in 2004, photographed by Terry Richardson. It continued through campaigns for Agent Provocateur, AGL and Lafayette 148, and reached Eton Shirts in 2025.

  Peter Sarsgaard entered her life in 2002, when the two began a relationship. They became engaged in April 2006 and married on the 2nd of May 2009 in a small chapel in Brindisi, Italy. They have two daughters. The family lived briefly on Greenwich Street in Manhattan from 2005 to 2006. Then they moved to a 3,600-square-foot townhouse in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where they stayed until 2019.

  Her political voice has sometimes made headlines. At the 18th Independent Spirit Awards in 2003, she said the reason for invading Iraq was "oil and imperialism." In 2005 she drew controversy by calling the September 11 attacks "an occasion to be brave enough to ask some serious questions about America's role in the world." She took part in Artists United to Win Without War, a campaign started by Robert Greenwald.

  She and Jake filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in 2004. That year she backed John Kerry, and in 2008 she backed Barack Obama. She has also campaigned for the American Civil Liberties Union, which her family strongly supports. In June 2013 she joined numerous other celebrities in a video supporting whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

  Her charity work is just as varied. In November 2007 she co-hosted a benefit dinner with Peter Gabriel, founder of Witness, a non-profit that uses video to expose human rights violations. She helped design a necklace sold for US$100 to raise money for TrickleUp.org, which helps people in poverty start micro-enterprises. In October 2008 she hosted a Los Angeles fashion show called "Fashionably Natural," featuring designers who used only eco-friendly fabrics. In 2012 she said she would work to elect officials who believe all women should have access to quality health care and information, a stance behind her support of Planned Parenthood.

  Since 2008 she has served as ambassador for the Hear the World Foundation, which advocates for equal opportunities and a better quality of life for people with hearing loss. That commitment has now lasted well over a decade.

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