Latest news with #MaggieGyllenhaal
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Peter Sarsgaard On Awards, Elon Musk, And Dancing In His New Film ‘The Bride': 'It's About The Monster In All Of Us' – Karlovy Vary Film Festival
Peter Sarsgaard arrived in Karlovy Vary as one of the festival's few honorees without a new film in the lineup — instead, he presented his 2003 film Shattered Glass, a visionary real-life drama about an ethically unmoored journalist whose embellished stories in some ways foresaw the media landscape of today. That doesn't mean the actor has been idle; he came to the Czech Republic direct from the set of William Gibson's 1984 sci-fi classic Neuromancer. 'It's a big, ten-episode thing for Apple,' he reveals. 'I play a guy called Ashpool, who, if you've read the book, is a guy who's created something that's sort of like AI. He's the wealthiest person in the world, but the world is suffering. He's in his own small world of not suffering, and you see how that's an impossibility: Elon Musk may think he's going to go to Mars to get away from it all, but everything's going to follow him to Mars. There's no getting away. And who the f*ck wants to be on Mars?' More from Deadline 'Ordinary Failures' Filmmaker Cristina Grosan & 'Family Film' Director Olmo Omerzu Discuss Building Sustainable Careers In CEE - Karlovy Vary Netflix Promotes Łukasz Kłuskiewicz To Run TV & Movies Out Of CEE Region Frankfurt Book Fair In Talks To Launch Network Of Book-To-Screen Adaptation Markets At Festivals Including Venice, Busan & Toronto - Karlovy Vary After that, Sarsgaard will be seen in his wife Maggie Gyllenhaal's new film The Bride!, a '30s-set crime story loosely based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 'I'm going to say that it's going to be controversial,' says the actor. 'I mean, it's very punk. It's very radical in some ways, and the main characters in it are very imperfect. It's also a love story, basically. It's about the monster in all of us.' Contrary to advance rumors, the film is not a musical, as such, although Sarsgaard conceded that there are some dance routines. Is he a good dancer? 'I will certainly dance if given the opportunity,' he laughs. 'I'm known as the first one on and the last one off the dance floor. I shake it until my moneymaker's wet.' DEADLINE: The clip reel of your past work that the festival showed here was pretty impressive… PETER SARSGAARD: Anguish! [Laughs.] So much anguish, my God. DEADLINE: How did you feel about it, looking back at your work? SARSGAARD: I feel like I'm getting better and better as an actor. That's what I feel like. I feel like at least it's not going the other way yet. DEADLINE: Have you always been able to be objective about your acting? SARSGAARD: I think when I was younger, I thought I was great, period. Yeah. When I first started acting, the first time I ever did it, this beautiful woman named Karen Schmulen asked me to come to an acting class with her, because I seemed depressed or something. And so, I audited an acting class, and I remember sitting there watching these other actors. I always felt really like a non-actor. And I felt like a non-actor for a long time, because a lot of the people who were actors that I grew up around were very theatrical people. And the class had a lot of those people. They asked me to read from this play, Bent, which is about homosexuals in the Holocaust, and it was an insanely dramatic scene where he has to prove his sexuality — prove that he's heterosexual — by having sex with a dead woman. And I mean, the stakes could not be higher! And I didn't know that I could do it. I thought, well, this is impossible. And then I started doing it, and it was like I slipped into [a trance] and I came out the other side and everyone was looking at me like they had just watched something, and I went, 'Oh wow, I'm really good at this. And so, I felt like I was really good at it kind of immediately. And I look back now and I see someone who needed to be seen, had a lot of emotions to let go of and express, and I was sort of just venting emotions for a long time. It wasn't as finely nuanced as I'm ultimately capable of. And it took a number of years to get all of that out. Now, I have access to an emotional life, but that doesn't have to be everything. DEADLINE: When did you reach that point of letting go? SARSGAARD: I mean, it was gradual. I don't know that there was an exact moment, but I knew it was something that I needed to ultimately do. I was asked to play a lot of people in crisis situations early on, a lot of victims. My audition for Dead Man Walking was: 'Your girlfriend is getting raped in front of you. Improvise.' I actually have the audition tape. The casting director, Doug Aibel, still had it, and I saw it recently. It's very convincing. I look like a person who's watching his girlfriend get raped, but that's only one aspect of acting, right? To put yourself in heightened imaginary circumstances and be able to do it. I'm really glad that I'm not having to do that anymore. I mean, to be fair, the circumstances in Neuromancer that I'm doing right now are insanely high, the given circumstances, and I'm approaching it differently. The thing to remember is that people disassociate really well. This is something I think actors forget. I mean, if your girlfriend's being raped in front of you, I don't know that you even weep. I think you might. I don't know. Look at people in wartime. They're not crying and pulling their hair out all the time. They're in a kind of survival mode. It's not anguish all the time. So, I think that that's something that it takes time and wisdom to realize. DEADLINE: Were you disappointed that your last film, , didn't get the attention it deserved? SARSGAARD: I think it was controversial, considering what's going on in Israel. What was interesting about that film is I had people who were on both sides of that war come up to me and say, 'I have problems with the film,' and I've had people who are on both sides of that situation come up to me and say that they thought the film was great. To me, that film was just about journalism. It was about the beginning of 24/7 news coverage, and it asks, 'Is seeing something in real time, without having any perspective on it, the truth?' I mean, is it better to take 24 hours to fully understand something versus following it second by second? Where you point the camera, you've made a decision already. It's already subjective. This idea that a live camera is the truth I don't think is… It's certainly not the full truth. So… I don't know. To me, it exceeded its expectations. When I went to go make that movie, if somebody had told me that it would've been nominated for any awards, I would've been very surprised. DEADLINE: Just because it was so small? SARSGAARD: Yeah. It was made for nothing. It had no money behind it. Awards are about money. Look, if you're on a big movie, that's a lot of voters that are just on your movie set that are going to vote for your movie, right? Or if your director has been nominated for 15 Academy Awards, chances are he will be nominated, the film will be nominated, and all the actors will be nominated. The awards are no litmus test of anything other than a certain degree of quality and popularity. I think awards are important for shining a light on movies that otherwise wouldn't have been seen. And so that's why, I guess in some sense, I'm into a kind of affirmative action with awards. We should really go, 'What needs it?' Not necessarily what deserves it, because who the f*ck knows what deserves it? We all have different opinions on that, but what could use a spotlight? What could use some attention? For me, a film like Nickel Boys, that deserves some attention. That's an interesting thing that happened not that long ago in the United States and I thought the film was very well-made and, yeah, give that film some attention. DEADLINE: You're in Karlovy Vary with another film about journalism, , about a guy who fabricates his stories… SARSGAARD: …In the interest of entertainment? DEADLINE: Yes. How do you think that story resonates in today's world? SARSGAARD: Isn't journalism all about entertainment on some level? I mean, why do we cover a hurricane coming toward some place in 24/7 coverage? It's not just to warn people to get away. It's because it's entertaining. It's a natural phenomenon that looks incredible. 'Oh, we're going to get in a plane and we're going to look at it from the top and it's impressive.' It's viewership. A lot of the places where I get my news are not supported by advertising. And I think that if viewership is your model and advertising and all of that, then it's going to have an effect on the news. So, what happens in Shattered Glass is, he's trying to make it entertaining. So, he fabricates things to make it more entertaining. I think that happens so much now that it's almost like the movie feels old-fashioned. Right? I know a couple of journalists who are independent journalists, and I actually get a lot of my news from them. DEADLINE: In your speech the other night you touched on current affairs in the United States. Do you like to use your platform as an actor, as a public figure, or is it more about the need to express how you feel? SARSGAARD: I have no idea if anyone will listen to what I say, but anytime I'm in front of a microphone and there are a bunch of people, I consider it an opportunity. And I certainly am not going to stand up there and weep about how my acting teacher helped me get to this moment. I think we are not in the age of individual achievement. Nobody wants to watch an actor get up there and be like, 'This is my big moment!' I think, above a certain level of quality in acting, we're all basically doing the same thing. Some people have more opportunities; some people have fewer opportunities. Some people have a bigger range, some of them less. And so, with the speech I gave in Venice and the one I gave here, I wrote them both on the same day that I gave them. It's whatever is on my mind on that day. I told [my agent] I was going to give a 45-second speech, because I also don't believe in long speeches. And in 45 seconds I want to say what? This is an opportunity to say something. I'm not an overtly political person. I'm not going to take down one political leader and prop up another. I'm not going to weigh in on some issue that's incredibly divisive, even though I have my own opinions about it. But I try to do a more 30,000ft view of what I think is all of our problems. What I don't see a lot in the world is anyone asking, 'what is our collective problem?' I think for 99% of us, 1% [of the population] is fucking things up. DEADLINE: Do you think actors in particular are starting to self-censor, because they don't know whether their words will be used against them? SARSGAARD: I think that that time is ending. I was looking at actors at Cannes, they were all speaking out quite forcefully about things they believed in. I mean, some of them pretty controversially. I don't feel scared about it, really. I mean, I'm not an actor that's in big blockbusters that have to sell to every single person. My audience doesn't have to be absolutely everyone. When you make a movie for $10 million or under, you can make it however you want it. You don't have to have everybody like it. If you make a movie for a $100 million then you have to not say anything controversial. The good news is that I'm not like Tom Cruise. I think for him there would probably be more at stake in terms of saying what he thought. In some ways he does say what he thinks, but not super-controversially. DEADLINE: What is your relationship with technology and AI? SARSGAARD: My relationship with that stuff? Well, I'm just old enough that… I mean, I have memories of black and white television and getting up and changing the channel. I watched [TV shows] Hogan's Heroes, Baa Baa Black Sheep. These were the things I grew up watching. And we didn't get cable for a long time, because my family doesn't watch television. We didn't get cable until I was, I think, 14. And then I didn't get a cell phone until I was 23 or something like that. But my dad was a computer programmer and salesman and stuff and knew a lot about computers. And so, we always had IBM computers in the house. My dad also had a ham radio. They felt similar. So, my relationship with technology is still like that. I use this phone for music and chess. That's about it. Best of Deadline Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winners Through The Years Deadline Studio At Sundance Film Festival Photo Gallery: Dylan O'Brien, Ayo Edebiri, Jennifer Lopez, Lily Gladstone, Benedict Cumberbatch & More TIFF People's Choice Award Winners Through The Years: Photo Gallery
Screen Geek
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Screen Geek
Peter Sarsgaard Says 'The Bride' Is "Controversial"
We've seen some interesting cinematic reinterpretations of classic monsters in the last few years, and that includes the upcoming movie The Bride from director Maggie Gyllenhaal. The upcoming monster movie is an adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein with influences from the 1935 movie Bride of Frankenstein , and according to star Peter Sarsgaard, the film will be 'controversial.' Sarsgaard, who is married to Gyllenhaal, stars in the movie alongside the likes of Jessie Buckley as Frankenstein's bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein's monster. While speaking with Deadline, he dropped some interesting details about the film, which will be a crime story set in the 1930s. Here's how he opened his statement about The Bride being controversial: 'I'm going to say that it's going to be controversial,' Sarsgaard plainly begins. 'I mean, it's very punk. It's very radical in some ways, and the main characters in it are very imperfect. It's also a love story, basically. It's about the monster in all of us.' There have been rumors regarding the project in the past, including reports that it could be a musical, which Sarsgaard denied. However, he did admit that there was some dancing involved in the film, and he had this to say on that front: 'I will certainly dance if given the opportunity,' he laughs. 'I'm known as the first one on and the last one off the dance floor. I shake it until my moneymaker's wet.' In addition to Buckley, Bale, and Sarsgaard, The Bride also stars Penélope Cruz, Annette Bening, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Linda Emond, Louis Cancelmi, and Matthew Maher. In addition to directing the film, Gyllenhaal also wrote the screenplay, which was produced for a budget of $80 million at Warner Bros. It'll certainly be interesting to see how the picture pans out, especially if it's as 'controversial' as Sarsgaard suggests. Of course, he most likely means that as a compliment, which adds another interesting layer to what Gyllenhaal must be cooking with this new take on Frankenstein . The Bride is currently scheduled to hit theaters early next year on March 6, 2026. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding the film as we have them.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Maggie Gyllenhaal Has Sparked A Debate On "White Privilege" After She Automatically Assumed That "All" Women Actors Use Their Sexuality For Roles
In 2018, Angela Bassett, Claire Foy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elisabeth Moss, Thandiwe Newton, and Sandra Oh all sat down with the Hollywood Reporter for a wide-ranging chat about various aspects of their careers. Related: At one point, they were asked about roles that were "easy no's" for them, leading Thandiwe, who is mixed, to sound off about constantly being approached for "ethnic" and "exotic" roles. She said, "I, for years, would be called up and said, 'Thandiwe, they want to go exotic with the role, so get excited. They want to go ethnic with the role,' and even just that...I would just have to brace myself because it was just so deeply offensive, but I wanted to work." "And then I would read the script, and I would transform it out of this bizarre objectification, and I would think, how can I help this, how can I make this more progressive?" Thandiwe continued, noting that the roles were frustratingly "always" written by men. "As soon as I read 'sexy,' I'm like, really? Do we have to be sexy in order to be powerful?" she wondered. "What's that about? And no, they don't mean it when they write 'sexy,' they mean strong, but let's start looking at the way things are described and let's take out the incredibly offensive [words]. They have ramifications. I have daughters. I don't want her thinking you have to be sexy to be powerful." Maggie then chimed in to say that some male creators are well-meaning and genuinely "interested and curious about women" in their work. She also said she believes "sex and sex scenes and sexuality has been a way to get people's attention and then go, OK, are you listening now? Here's what I actually really want to talk about." "That's what's available to me," the Dark Knight star said, "so that's what I used." Related: "I think it has felt like a prerequisite that yes, you can be smart and powerful and all these things," she continued, "but you do have to throw a little sexiness in there. I don't know if that's going to stay that way, but it's certainly been that way for most of my career." Thandiwe then repeated her concern, specifically for young women coming into the industry who are "encouraged to use [their] sexuality" to book jobs, leading Maggie to interject and say, "But aren't we all?" Related: "No, not really," said Angela, who up until that point had been sitting quietly at the table. "I've not been asked to use my sexuality in my career." Clearly taken aback, Maggie asked, "Really? But even just, like, as a vibe?" "No," Angela replied, "not as a Black woman. [I'm] not seen know, there's a particular look and a vibe and image." "And you don't think it includes sexuality?" Maggie asked, pressing on, to which Angela firmly answered, "No, it has not." Sandra, who is Korean, agreed with her. "I gotta tell you. I'll echo Angela's experience, and I will say, for me, I don't think I've ever gotten a job based on boom, boom, boom, boom, boom," she said, motioning toward her body. "No," Angela stressed. "That's why it was so beautiful the first season of Grey's Anatomy to see that image because it has never, across the board, the landscape of cinema, not the one they're checking for for sexuality." Related: The clip of the conversation resurfaced on X this week, earning over 3 million views and tons of comments criticizing Maggie for her insensitive remarks. One X user wrote, "she's so tone deaf lmfao I'm crying." "and then thandiwe next to her going 'i wonder why ' hdhjjsjsj they were having a who's more tone deaf competition there," commented another. Someone else said, "Maggie just sitting there like a deer in headlights - what Angela & Sandra said is absolutely industry has always had a strange and biased physicality to women of other colors and ethnicities. It's fucked if you really pay attention to movies and tv, and really look at just the last 30 years even, it's very true. Has it gotten better in the more recent years? Ehh, a bit, but there's still a long ass way to go. But what I don't get is that Angela & Sandra are STUNNING, SEXY, BEAUTIFUL women, so it honestly makes zero sense to be discriminated against in such a way. Glad they said something." Another person praised "the way Angela started the layup and Maggie slam dunked it…" There was tons of criticism when the moment was initially posted on THR's YouTube channel, too, with many sharing similar thoughts. One person teased that their "Favorite part is this video is watching Angela and Sandra basically tell Maggie 'Maybe for YOU, Sis.'" "The conversation about sexuality is exactly why these panels need to continue to be diverse," said another. "Maggie's experience is completely different than that of Angela and Sandra's because they aren't necessarily looked at as sex symbols. Their bodies/faces/skin are not what the industry has typically used in scripted forums to show what sexuality can be. I think Maggie learned a lot from their push back to her about how these things differ based on your race. I loved the different perspectives." Another person stated, "This was frustrating to watch. It's clear Thandie has a lot of trauma wrapped into how she was treated and exploited in the industry, and for Maggie to immedIately counter that with 'well I know good men / that's what women historically had to offer' was excruciatingly tone deaf and reeked of privilege. Same as both of them not even acknowledging the experience that a darker woman of colour / less 'conventionally' attractive women had experienced. So much fertile ground for discussion but it all stayed shapeless and poorly articulated." "When Angela said she was not encouraged to use her sexuality and Maggie goes 'really even just as a vibe?' I lost it," another shared. "I think one of my personal pet peeves is saying no to a question/statement in terms of my own experience and then to be asked again 'really?'" Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Also in Celebrity: Also in Celebrity: Also in Celebrity:
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Peter Sarsgaard on Elon Musk's Mars Plans, Going to a 'No Kings' Protest, and How 'We're All F***ed'
Humanity must work together or else, Peter Sarsgaard (Dead Man Walking, Boys Don't Cry) told reporters during a Saturday roundtable interview conducted as part of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), in which he also explained why he joined a 'No Kings' protest on U.S. President Donald Trump's birthday, and why he doesn't believe in Elon Musk's Mars colonization plans as a way to safe the human race. Sarsgaard shared his thoughts and insights after receiving the KVIFF President's Award during the festival opening ceremony on Friday night. In his acceptance speech, he spoke out against divisions, especially in the U.S., saying: 'The enemies are the forces that divide us.' He added: 'There is no going it alone. As my country retreats from its global responsibilities and tries to go it alone, it is also being divided into factions from within — factions of politics, gender, sexuality, race, Jews split over the war.' Sarsgaard's wife, Maggie Gyllenhaal, identifies as Jewish. More from The Hollywood Reporter Kun on Latest Single "Deadman" and His Next Chapter: "It's Really Just the Beginning" 'Cinema Jazireh': An Afghan Woman Looking for a Loved One Must Transform Herself (KVIFF Trailer) 'Broken Voices' Is Inspired by a Girls' Choir Sexual Abuse Scandal Long Before #MeToo Given such dangers as climate change and nuclear or other war, Sarsgaard said: 'We're all going to die. Our children are all going to live on the same planet, and maybe Elon [Musk]'s will live on Mars. It doesn't look that nice to me. I think you have to be born on Mars and never have seen Earth to think Mars is nice.' He continued: 'We're all fucked. So we have to connect. It's very simple. That's not even political. I'm not political in that way. I'm not endorsing candidates.' Sarsgaard first referenced Musk when asked about his upcoming Apple TV+ series, the book adaptation Neuromancer, which he is currently shooting. 'I play a guy who has created a kind of AI that is used all over the world, and he's basically the most powerful, richest guy in the world,' he explained. 'And because the world is going to shit, he has a place where he can be that's [far] away. So, I'm playing this guy who sort of manages to really get away, away from Earth, Elon Musk-style – 'we'll just go to Mars while this one goes to shit.' There is no place to go! So that really interested me.' Sarsgaard then mentioned how apocalypse-fearing technology and other billionaires have been building survivalist bunkers. 'I've heard more rich people talk about this. Many wealthy people are buying properties, say, in New Zealand, and they've heard that that's the place to be,' he explained. 'There is no fucking place to be unless you have a nuclear arsenal to keep everyone else at bay!! There is no place to go. We're all in this together. So that theme interested me. I was also a big fan of the book. I read it in high school, and I just loved a lot of the language. I'm going to get to meet [the author] William Gibson. He's in the show, and he had lines like 'undulating tsunamis of delight.' I remember a lot of the language is so muscular and crazy.' The star also shared that he has his own place far away, but he doesn't expect to be safe there if a catastrophe strikes. 'I actually have a piece of property that is way out in the woods and has its own water source,' he said. 'It's a great place to be, maybe, for climate change. And I hear people say this sometimes: 'Where's the best place to be for climate change?' When it happens, there's no place to be, because you think the world is going to stay in the desert, where there's no water? Everyone's going to go. They don't care that you own the property.' Notably, the theme of AI and machines having an increasing role in replacing human interactions also plays into Sarsgaard's worry about a lack of social connections. In 2023, Sarsgaard warned about AI. 'I think we can all really agree that an actor is a person and that a writer is a person, but apparently we can't,' he said at the Venice International Film Festival back then. He urged the industry not to hand over stories about connections 'to the machines and the eight billionaires that own them.' Speaking of billionaires, Sarsgaard told reporters in Karlovy Vary on Saturday that, 'I like going to a protest sometimes to look at all these people. 'We can do it! We all believe in something bigger'.' The most recent protest was a big one, and he went to it with his 13-year-old daughter. 'I went to the one on Trump's birthday, the anti-Trump's birthday – the 'No Kings' protest,' he said. 'I went to the one that was right outside the New York Public Library.' His daughter 'was really moved about a collective action like that,' the actor recalled. 'I know it seems political, but to me, 'No Kings' is not that political. All the power consolidated in the fewest number of people sounds like a bad idea. I believe, I guess, in a kind of combination of socialism and democracy. But I don't know what to call it. I I think there are other people who know that shit better than I do. I just want everybody to have an equal opportunity.' At the end of his conversation with this group of reporters, Sarsgaard explained what's next for him after Neuromancer. It's a film with Swiss director Michael Koch that is called Erosion. Koch's A Piece of Sky was made with non-actors, 'so I'll also be acting with mostly non-actors,' the star explained. 'We're filming it in Lucerne. He wrote the role for me.' He portrays a skilled person. 'I play a brain surgeon,' Sarsgaard said. 'I've been going to all these brain surgeries, and I've been going to so many brain surgeries that at this point I am kind of like feeling I could do it.' He also shared about the role: 'It's a really huge canvas for me as an actor. I'm in every frame of the movie, and it's not just a lead role in that sense. It's a character who really goes somewhere. He starts in one place, and he ends up in another. I don't know where it will be. I'm curious, and I really trust this director. He's a really visual storyteller, and so I think that will be a very good combination.' At one point during Saturday's conversation, Sarsgaard lauded his wife, Gyllenhaal, for being such a knowledgeable director. Could fans ever see him take a seat in the director's chair? 'Maybe I have one movie in me to direct one day,' he replied. 'I actually have an idea for something I would like to direct at some point, but it would be a very actor-driven thing. And I have an appreciation for cinema, and the visual telling of the story, but my wife has the complete package.' The actor most recently starred in director Tim Fehlbaum's September 5. He has also wrapped production on Warner Bros.' The Bride!, which also stars Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley and is set for release later this year. Directed by Gyllenhaal, the film takes place in 1930s Chicago and puts a spin on the classic Frankenstein story. For his role as a man suffering from dementia in Michel Franco's Memory, opposite Jessica Chastain, Sarsgaard won the Volpi Cup for best actor at the 2023 Venice festival. In series, he has starred in the likes of Presumed Innocent, The Killing, and Dopesick. In unveiling that he would receive this year's honor, KVIFF organizers lauded Sarsgaard for being 'renowned for his range and ability to access what is behind the often-complicated facades of the characters he plays.' In the actor's honor, the fest is screening the 2003 journalism drama Shattered Glass. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts
Sky News AU
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Maggie Gyllenhaal's ‘nepo baby' arrested at protest
'To Di For' podcast host Kinsey Schofield reacts to the arrest of Maggie Gyllenhaal's daughter during the Columbia University protests. 'Nepotism is so in now, it's not just a mugshot anymore, it's a headshot for her role as misunderstood nepo baby number three,' Ms Schofield told Sky News host Rita Panahi. 'What a fascinating social experiment here in the States when your last name gets you into nightclubs, movies and courtrooms all in the same week.'
