Maggie Gyllenhaal told a Busan International Film Festival press conference on Wednesday that the best directors she worked with as an actress, who were usually also the most successful, understood the value of drawing on the minds of the people around them. Gyllenhaal is in Busan with “Flesh Impact,” a short film she wrote and directed in which Ellen Burstyn plays Marilyn Monroe at 100 and Dakota Johnson plays the star in her youth. When she made her feature directing debut, “The Lost Daughter,” her main concern was that everyone on set, from the actors to the cinematographer, production designer and gaffer, felt free to contribute.
I have the power, so there’s no reason to squash anyone else’s voice,” she said. Gyllenhaal said she knew the star mostly through her image as a screen icon, and took a week to decide whether she had anything to say about her. She spent it reading about Monroe and watching her films.
They’re never going to go for it.'” Genesis approved the pitch, and Gyllenhaal finished the script within a weekend. The film, which also features Peter Sarsgaard and Sepideh Moafi, world premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. Gyllenhaal said that as much as the film celebrates Monroe, “it is also 100% a celebration and an honoring of Ellen Burstyn and her incredible career, and Dakota Johnson and her incredible career.” Gyllenhaal said the move from acting to producing and then to writing and directing felt natural.
When she was young, so few women were directing that acting seemed the obvious outlet for a woman who loved movies and wanted to tell stories. Her move into writing and directing began eight years ago with “The Lost Daughter,” and she said she has felt more at ease and more inspired behind the camera ever since. Gyllenhaal’s father, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a director and her mother, Naomi Foner, a screenwriter.
Growing up, the family went to the movies almost every Friday night, Gyllenhaal said. I think she might be the only person to have directed her first film as a grandmother,” Gyllenhaal said, calling her mother “probably the best note-giver that I have.” Her brother Jake Gyllenhaal, who appeared in “The Bride,” is a close friend whose different taste she called a gift. Gyllenhaal said she has begun writing two “kind of budding ideas” and is “in that very exciting place where I’m kind of like, ‘What is this going to ultimately be about, you know?'” Variety reported in June that she will direct and produce an adaptation of Rachel Kushner’s novel “Creation Lake” for Warner Bros., which also backed “The Bride.” On the subject of women filmmakers, Gyllenhaal pointed back to her remarks at Venice, where she served as jury president and only one woman had a film in competition.
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