Maggie Gyllenhaal admitted she was worried about mixing business and her personal life before casting her husband Peter Sarsgaard in The Lost Daughter.
Speaking to The New York Times’ “The Interview” on Friday, March 6, Gyllenhaal shared she was initially concerned about her husband playing a character scripted to have steamy sex scenes when she directed the 2021 film.
“It is complicated working with my husband,” Gyllenhaal, 48, told the outlet. “We’ve done it in all sorts of ways. We did The Lost Daughter, where he has a really hot love affair with Jessie Buckley.”
She added, “And at first, I almost didn’t give him the part.”
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Gyllenhaal explained that she questioned whether she could juggle her professional role as a director while navigating the reality of her real-life partner playing out spicy scenes in front of her.
“I was like, ‘I don’t need that, also.’ Along with directing a movie for the first time,” she explained. “I actually offered it to somebody else first. And I knew he was hurt. And I remember speaking to both my best girlfriend and to this teacher. And both of them were like, ‘You can’t manage this? Can you really not?’ And I was like, ‘No, I think I can actually.’”
After changing her mind and casting him in the role, Gyllenhaal said that she was ultimately able to direct The Lost Daughter’s sizzling scenes from an “unconnected, emotionally, place.”
“I mean this wasn’t at all about the sex. This was about the courtship, which was so hot and pushing them and pushing them and watching them create as like, real actors have to, like create the love,” Gyllenhaal said.
She also said that she thought both Sarsgaard and Buckley’s performances were “brilliant” in the end.
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Sarsgaard was close friends with Maggie’s brother Jake Gyllenhaal before striking up a romance with Maggie in 2002. The couple got engaged in 2006 then went on to tie the knot three years later in Brindisi, Italy. Maggie and her husband share daughters Ramona, 19, and Gloria, 13.
Giving a rare insight into their marriage in December 2023, Sarsgaard, 55, shared the “simple” reason his marriage to The Dark Knight actress has lasted the distance.
“Tell the truth,” Sarsgaard told E! News after he was asked about the key to a successful marriage. “Isn’t that all there is? It’s pretty simple. It’s not that complicated. Isn’t that the secret to any friendship or relationship?”
