Maggie Gyllenhaal has broken the silence on the challenges she faced when casting husband Peter Sarsgaard in her projects.
In a new conversation with The New York Times, Maggie Gyllenhaal talked about how directing her husband of 15 years can sometimes become “complicated.” It is notable that Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal tied the knot in 2009.
While sharing her two cents about working with her husband, who is also an actor, she spoke candidly about the challenges that come with working so closely.
She recalls directing Peter in her 2021 directorial debut The Lost Daughter, in which he plays Professor Hardy, who begins a passionate affair with Jessie Buckley’s Leda Jovem.
“It’s complicated working with my husband, we’ve done it in all kinds of ways,” she said. “We did The Lost Daughter, where he has a really hot love affair with Jessie Buckley.”
She even admitted that she sought advice before deciding to cast Peter in the role.
“I remember talking to both my best friend and this teacher, and they both said, ‘Can’t you handle this? Can you really not do that?’ And I thought, ‘I think I can do it, and I really want Peter to play this role.'”
The filmmaker was candid about her approach to overseeing the film’s more intimate scenes between her husband and his co-star, saying it was a challenge to allow her personal emotions to intervene. She reportedly managed to maintain a “disconnected, stoic” attitude.
‘He was so good, and so was Jessie,’ she thought.
“And when I saw them together and each of them urged from a very disconnected, emotional place and pushed them and saw them create the love, like real actors have to do – I saw them do that.”
“If I get a moment to stop, it’s a little difficult, but we have to keep going,” the actress continued. “Then we get to the sexy stuff. We’re filming the scene on the stairs where they’re kissing, and I was just looking at it: Is the light on her leg the right way? And maybe if we just turn this way, very removed, and we got it,” she concluded.
