Describing someone as quirky is a way of erasing them. What does it even mean? In so many interviews over the years, that's how I'm described. It doesn't sit comfortably with me.
— Maggie Gyllenhaal
Therapy was incredibly enlightening. I don't think it's only necessary if you're unwell - it's a useful tool for me to understand my own mind and how it works.
College gave me validation: I gained a lot of confidence, just from once or twice saying something in class and the professor saying, 'Great idea.' That experience has certainly helped me say to a director, 'Actually, I think my idea is at least worth talking about.'
I used to think that if I did my very best work, then everyone would love it, but I've realised that not everybody thinks the same things are good. It took me 30 years even to begin to see that.
The older I get, the more vulnerable I get. But the part of me that resists that, that is stubborn and wants to bulldoze things, gets in my way.
I was always dressing up as a kid. I had a dress for all the Los Angeles bar and bat mitzvahs that I was going to when I was 13 which I was crazy for. It was green, dark, shimmery. Very 1980s. It was slightly off-the-shoulder, which I thought was very sophisticated.
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.
I'm not interested in showing the wish of what it looks like to be human. I'm interested in showing what it actually looks like.
Simple black-and-white thinking or action is always going to be problematic.
Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.
Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it.
I'm still trying to figure out what the right line is between myself and the people I play. Sometimes I go too far one way or too far the other.
I think Secretary's funny, it is about sex, and there's a lot of sex in it, sex is the key, but you're talking about a lot of other complicated things.
I liked that idea. Someone who's trying to perform herself and not succeeding.
I don't see that many movies lately that are actually about something, that are trying to challenge something about the way that people interact.
A big part of being an actress specifically is feeling entitled to your artistic opinion, feeling that it means something, and being able to stand by it.
I have a raging temper. I'll shout and scream, then it passes like a wicked storm.
Yes, I want to do good work. But just because a movie is small, it doesn't make it better. In fact, there are a lot of really horrible independent movies made.
When you are in every scene of a movie - which I must say I really much prefer - you have more control over the film that you're making. Because the choices you make as an actor can't help but change what the movie is saying.
As I get older, I find I cry much more often than I did.
I happen to be in a line of work where I get given lots of clothes, and I definitely think it's fun, but I know that, ultimately, fashion is not that important. I use fashion, though, as a way of thinking about who I am.
I like clothes. And I think it's OK to think about clothes just so long as you also think about other things. I'm not interested in clothes to the point where they'll push other things out of my mind; I just see them as a way of expressing yourself, and a pleasure, really.
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.
So many people are willing to sleepwalk through things and fall into the not human, not interesting choice. To make the really interesting choice, you have to fight.
You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you.
We were lounging around in this beautiful house in LA, and I'm coming from NY, so sometimes when we weren't working I would just sit on those folding chairs.
On a film, I was always acting. I was either changing my clothes really quickly and wiping off the lipstick and putting on the other lipstick and then working constantly, constantly.
I want to have some effect on the way the world works in whatever way I can, and I also want to have the power to help get the movies that I think are important made.
I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.
I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles. But I found them and did all of them just now.
Having an education is invaluable.
Motherhood brings you to your knees in a way that doesn't leave room for you to judge others. It makes you see that there's no ideal - a constant struggle, constantly compromising, but ultimate love.
After making 'Secretary,' it was a real shock to me to learn that some directors just aren't interested in what actors have to say. They just don't want to collaborate.
I think what happened to me was I was so lucky to have made 'Secretary' so young. It's unusual to be given an opportunity to express yourself as an actress that young and that thoroughly.
I am not crazy about my knees.
When I was in grade school in L.A., I really loved Cyndi Lauper. I did everything I could to look like her. I had wild outfits and always wore different coloured socks. I wore loads of ribbons in my hair and let them fall in my eyes.
There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time.
I get magnetically pulled towards a project because there's something in it that offers me the opportunity to explore the edge of my understanding about myself.
I don't think I'm a brilliant writer, but I'm a good writer, and it's just so empowering to get involved.
You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.
There was something to me that was really compelling about that woman, already knowing she couldn't get pregnant. When I made that movie I was maybe 24, and to be 24 and already know you can't get pregnant, that was really interesting to me.
Most people are interested in seeing 27-year-old women who are in movies somehow connected to sex. It's interesting to everyone. Especially little movies that are having trouble getting made, there's always sex.
I think sex is very interesting for most people, but I'm interested in sex as a way of communication, I'm not that interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene.
I made a movie where I played a girl that just got out of prison and we shot it very very quickly but very intensely-that took me a long time to get over.
I feel so gratified about having finished college. I learned how to articulate myself. It gave me confidence more than anything. And also the ability to analyze the text.
A play is much easier to maintain your personal life with because if you're rehearsing, you're working like from 11 to 6 or 11 to 5 and you get to have your whole morning and your whole evening. When you're doing the play, you have all day.
