Margalit Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal is an American actress and filmmaker.
53 Facts About Maggie Gyllenhaal
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Maggie Gyllenhaal began her career as a teenager with small roles in several of her father's films, and appeared with her brother in the cult favorite Donnie Darko.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal then appeared in Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Mona Lisa Smile.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal received critical acclaim for her leading performances in the erotic romantic comedy drama Secretary and the drama Sherrybaby, each of which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal subsequently starred in the comedies and dramas: Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Hysteria, and Won't Back Down.
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In 2021, Maggie Gyllenhaal made her writing and directing debut with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, for which she won the Venice International Film Festival's Best Screenplay Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has appeared in five stage productions since 2000, including making her Broadway debut in a revival of The Real Thing.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has starred in several television series, including the BBC political-thriller miniseries The Honourable Woman.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal produced and starred in the HBO period drama series The Deuce.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has been married to actor Peter Sarsgaard since 2009 and they have two children together.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Naomi Achs and Stephen Maggie Gyllenhaal.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has a younger brother, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and a half-brother, Luke, from their father's second marriage.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal's father is a film director and poet, and her mother is a screenwriter and director.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal's mother was born in New York City, and is Jewish, from Ashkenazi Jewish families that emigrated from Russia and Poland.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has stated that she "grew up mostly Jewish, culturally", and she identifies as Jewish, though she did not attend Hebrew school.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal's parents married in 1977, and filed for divorce in October 2008.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal spent four months as a student at The Mountain School, a semester school for high school juniors in Vermont.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal studied acting for a summer term at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal later achieved recognition in her own right playing her real brother's on-screen sister in the indie cult favorite Donnie Darko.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal made her theatrical debut in the Berkeley Repertory Theatre production of Patrick Marber's Closer, for which she received favorable reviews.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has performed in several other plays, including The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Butterfly Project, and No Exit.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal later appeared in the unauthorized biography Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, part of an ensemble cast that included Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal's next roles were in smaller independent films: Casa de los Babys, is a story about six American women impatiently waiting out their lengthy residency requirements in a South American country before picking up their adoptive babies, and Criminal, a remake of the Argentinian film Nine Queens, with John C Reilly and Diego Luna.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal plays an honest hotel manager forced to help her crooked brother by seducing one of his victims.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal starred in the HBO film Strip Search, in which she portrayed an American student in China suspected of terrorism.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal provides the essential bridge between the parts of the play's title.
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Finally in 2004, Maggie Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal recorded songs for the film's soundtrack, calling the role the "roughest, scariest acting ever" and adding she is more natural when singing on screen than when acting.
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In Stranger than Fiction, Maggie Gyllenhaal played a love interest of Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal regarded this as "one of the films she most enjoyed making".
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In Sherrybaby, Maggie Gyllenhaal played a young drug-addicted thief trying to put her life in order after prison so she can reconcile with her daughter.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal appeared in The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, in which she replaced Katie Holmes as Assistant District Attorney, Rachel Dawes.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal acknowledged her character was a damsel in distress to an extent, but said director Christopher Nolan sought ways to empower her character, so "Rachel's really clear about what's important to her and unwilling to compromise her morals, which made a nice change" from the many conflicted characters she had previously portrayed.
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IGN film critic Todd Gilchrist wrote, "Maggie Gyllenhaal adds real depth and energy to Rachel Dawes".
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Maggie Gyllenhaal agreed to star in the comedy Away We Go, in which she plays a bohemian college professor who is an old friend of John Krasinski's character.
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In 2010, Maggie Gyllenhaal appeared in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang with co-star Emma Thompson, the sequel to the 2005's Nanny McPhee.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal played Isabel Green, which required her to speak with an English accent.
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In February 2011, Maggie Gyllenhaal starred in another Anton Chekhov Off-Broadway production as the character Masha in Austin Pendleton's Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays a musician, said she initially turned down the role because she did not understand it.
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The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival to favorable opinions; Slant magazine's critic opined that Maggie Gyllenhaal has "passive and palpable screen presence".
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Maggie Gyllenhaal played the lead role as Baroness Nessa Stein, a British-Israeli businesswoman heiress in the BBC political spy thriller television miniseries, The Honourable Woman.
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In 2016, Maggie Gyllenhaal narrated Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina; it was made available for purchase on Amazon's Audible store.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal served as a producer and starred in the HBO drama series The Deuce, which aired from 2017 to 2019.
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In 2021, Maggie Gyllenhaal made her feature directorial debut with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, which she produced and wrote.
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The film received critical acclaim, and had its premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where Maggie Gyllenhaal won the Best Screenplay Award.
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At the 79th Golden Globe Awards, Maggie Gyllenhaal received a nomination for Best Director.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal then received a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 75th British Academy Film Awards, and the second Academy Award nomination of her career for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards.
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In 2002, Maggie Gyllenhaal began a relationship with actor Peter Sarsgaard.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has campaigned on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization her family strongly supports.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal is a supporter of Witness, a non-profit organization that uses video and online technologies to expose human rights violations.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal co-hosted a benefit dinner with founder Peter Gabriel in November 2007.
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For one of the fundraisers, Maggie Gyllenhaal helped design and promote a necklace that sold for US$100; all proceeds from sales went to the charity.
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Since 2008, Maggie Gyllenhaal has been supporting the Hear the World Foundation as ambassador.