While a lot of the awards buzz right now seems to be focused on those films that just hit theaters or played at the major fall film festivals, we can’t forget some of those gems from earlier in the year that still should be recognized. One of those is “The Kindergarten Teacher.” The drama stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, in a truly great performance, as the titular educator that takes an interest in a young student that could very well be a poetry prodigy. But that project is just one of the things on the actress’ mind right now.
And in a new interview with Vulture, the actress discusses her thoughts on a variety of issues including the future of her career, including why the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have greatly affected what gigs she’s interested in, and the trouble she went through to secure the rights to a novel.
Another project that Gyllenhaal has been happy to promote right now is “The Deuce.” And when she was asked about #MeToo and Time’s Up, she uses that HBO drama as an example of what she thinks is progress for the industry.
“There is a conscious effort to make changes. For example, in the second season of ‘The Deuce’ all the directors except one are women. That was a conscious choice on the part of HBO and the show’s producers. I think it’s worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long,” Gyllenhaal explains.
She continues, “All of this requires the most careful continued thinking and that’s difficult to do that because things are moving so fast. But I have a lot at stake: It’s my industry, it’s my work, it’s my gender. All these things we’re talking about have affected me. And so has getting older.”
READ MORE: David Simon’s ‘The Deuce’ Renewed For A Third And Final Season By HBO
Gyllenhaal goes into a little more detail about how these ideas of women’s roles in the entertainment industry, and why she never even considered a role behind the camera at all because of them. “For a long time, I bought into the idea that if you are a woman who is a storyteller and a lover of movies then the best way to express that is as an actress. Obviously, there are women my age who are directors who didn’t buy into that idea, but I did — and now I’ve broken that down inside myself. Now I want to direct, and though I might never put it this way, I didn’t always feel entitled to want that,” she says.
Well, now she does feel entitled to have the chance to step into the director’s chair. Not only does she have the desire, but she also found the project — an adaptation of author Elena Ferrante’s “The Lost Daughter.” However, knowing she wanted to work on the project was just the first step. Securing the rights to the novel was something else entirely. The notoriously private Ferrante wasn’t easy to get a hold of for Gyllenhaal. It took a letter written by the actress to the author before Ferrante would approve the rights sale.
Gyllenhaal explains, “I took writing the letter as an opportunity to convey why I wanted to make the movie and some very early thoughts about how I might do that — particularly because I’m setting it in the United States. But also I took the letter as an opportunity to reach out to somebody who writes about things that move me and begin a conversation with her about some of those things. I have to say, I spent weeks on that letter. But I’ve been working on the adaptation and now I’m about two-thirds of the way through.”
While we wait for Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, we can watch her on HBO’s “The Deuce” and Netflix’s “The Kindergarten Teacher,” available now.