Maggie Gyllenhaal on the consequences of 'starving a vibrant woman's mind'
Her film the Kindergarten Teacher deals with a woman 'driven crazy by the culture that she finds herself in'
Maggie Gyllenhaal is used to juggling diverse roles. Throughout her acting career, she's taken chances and pushed the envelope, from 2001's Donnie Darko to films like Secretary, The Dark Knight and Crazy Heart.
Currently, on the HBO series The Deuce, Gyllenhaal plays a sex worker turned independent pornography producer in 1970s New York. In a new film coming out next month, The Kindergarten Teacher, she portrays a teacher who becomes obsessed with one of her young students who she believes is a child prodigy.
"It's about the real consequences of what happens if you starve a vibrant woman's mind," Gyllenhaal told q's Tom Power about her new film, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. "I think so many women right now are waking up to the feeling that we've been starving, that we've been accepting so many things, bending over backwards, twisting ourselves into pretzels to get the things that we need to survive, and that it's not OK."
Gyllenhaal continued, "This is a woman who is not fundamentally mentally ill, she's not crazy, but I think [she's] someone who is driven crazy by the culture that she finds herself in."
The Kindergarten Teacher hits Netflix October 12. You can also watch Gyllenhaal in season two of The Deuce, which is airing now on HBO.
Click listen near the top of this page to hear the full interview with Gyllenhaal, where she also reflects on women and art in the age of Trump, and how actors' workplaces are changing in the #MeToo era.
— Produced by Chris Trowbridge
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