Maggie Gyllenhaal: It's the Eyes

Maggie G.'s co-star in the con caper film Criminal Diego Luna says she acts with her eyes. You make contact and boom! Great things happen. The talented actress does have great orbs, all done with cat-like smoky eye-make up to go with her leopard-print dress when we had our sit down at the 4 Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills recently.

Maggie has a rep for standing up for herself and delivering great performances in tough circumstances. If you weren't allowed to see her sexy socko breakthrough performance in the R-rated Secretary, you probably caught her as the "bad girl" in Mona Lisa Smile. Maggie, very sweet in person, gives great bad girl! Is she a goodie or a baddie in her new film? Can't tell ya but Maggie did spill all about her brother Jake, getting conned, her choices to make more indie films rather than mainstream blockbusters and she gives you her advice on the importance of being a college grad.

TeenHollywood: On the page your character Valerie might have seemed difficult to tap into so how did you develop her?

Maggie: Well, I guess interested me about her is that she seemed to be a classic girl in the con movie, a femme fatale which is appealing to me. I'm interested in that. There's something attractive about that for me, but I think it (femme fatale) is something that she's performing with an intention and I don't think that she's necessarily performing it very well. And I liked that idea. Someone who's trying to perform herself and not really succeeding. I felt that. I didn't know where to put my hands and here I was in this suit and there were times when I felt I was totally pulling it off and times I felt like what am I doing – it's not me? And I think that's what Valerie is going through.

TeenHollywood: Are you a fan of this type of movie? Do you like con movies?

Maggie: I didn't think of it as a genre movie although that's what it is. It's a very classic con movie. I don't think it's doing anything particularly shocking or new. It's like a new read on it really. What is so interesting about this one is that everyone is conning everybody else. So what I feel about the movie is that when you watch it, you have to invest yourself. There's nobody saying this is a person you can trust, this is a person you can't trust. It says, trust this person for a while - Oh look at cute little sweet Diego, he's definitely not lying and then you see he's definitely lying. And then all those scenes you valued up till then when he was your protagonist – do you throw all of them away or some of them away? Wait, where are we??!! Who can I trust?

TeenHollywood: How was it working with Diego?

Maggie: I love Diego. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He was adorable. He's very generous and lovely.

TeenHollywood: Has anyone ever conned you?

Maggie: Yeah, I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy. This is a teeny little con. One time I was in London alone and was 18 and having lunch in a café outside by myself. I had asked for the bill and taken my wallet out and put it on the table waiting for the bill to come. This guy came up to me and said `I don't think you're going to be able to pay for your meal' and I said 'What?' And he grabbed my wallet and ran down the street. It wasn't really a con but it's got a little something in it. And once when I was traveling alone in Spain I met this couple – it's a long story – but they conned me into buying them this expensive dinner. I was like I'm being conned and I can't get out of it. It was so strange.

TeenHollywood: Are your emotions at that point more frustrating or embarrassed that you allowed it to happen to you?

Maggie: I was sort of fascinated both times actually. I was a bit thrilled both times to be honest. I remember talking to this English Bobby on the phone and I told him the story about my wallet being stolen and he sort of started laughing. He asked me what my wallet looked like and I said it had a brand of the Virgin Mary branded on the front (laugh). He was laughing and said he'd get back to me if they found it.

TeenHollywood: A lot of young people postpone college. A lot of kids want a career right away and think they can't do both.

Maggie: I feel so proud about having finished college. Because basically what I got out of it was I learned how to articulate myself, I learned how to say what I mean. It basically gave me confidence really more than anything. And also the ability to analyze the text which is not so important in a movie like this but very important in doing the play I've been doing. I mean I don't think I could have done that play if I hadn't gone to college.

TeenHollywood: You were an English Literature major?

Maggie: Yeah, but it doesn't matter really what your major is. That just interested me so I studied that. It was really more like sitting in a seminar, saying something and having everyone understand it. And I think it's really worth something. 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. Now things are changing but maybe 10 years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and have that be okay. All the greatest directors want to collaborate with their actors as far as I can see. I think it's the people who are less talented who don't want to. Having an education and being able to articulate what it is you want and why is invaluable.

TeenHollywood: Now that you and Jake are working so much, do you get any time to spend together?

Maggie: Yeah, we try and find time to spend together. We just spent a week together on vacation.

TeenHollywood: Secretary was such a defining career moment for you. Has it been a challenge to find women who are as interesting as that character?

Maggie: Well I just did three movies where I played three really interesting women back to back so I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about the three women?

Maggie: Yeah, I just played The Great New Wonderful which was a very small movie in NY and I played a woman who is a cake decorator and decorates cakes that cost 15 grand. She's an entrepreneur and sort of stuck in the NY world. She has a crack-up. Then I did a movie called Happy Endings directed by Don Roos where I play a woman who's sleeping on her cousin's couch and can't get it together, but she has this incredible kind of wisdom. She has this love triangle with this gay kid and his dad. And she's so wise about it – wiser than I would be in my life about it. Then I did this movie which may be the one closest to my heart. I'm still recovering from in some ways I think called Shall Not Want. I found this incredible script about this woman who just got out of prison and had a 5 year-old. I had been holding onto to it for years and was trying to set it up and get it going. We did it, we made it and shot it in 25 days and that movie...I just felt she was another incredible woman.

TeenHollywood: Wow, those are very different women. Do you find that it's hard to come back to the real Maggie sometimes?

Maggie: 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 and I think in this movie (Shall Not Want), I got totally sucked into the person I was playing. We were shooting 14 hour days in Newark, going home really to basically eat something and sleep. So most of my waking life was playing this woman and working constantly. Not like a big movie where you shoot for an hour or 2, then they light (the set) for a couple of hours. It just takes a little while sometimes to recover from something like that.

TeenHollywood: Do you get any time for a personal life when you're working that much?

Maggie: I have to figure that out. I also did a play in that time. 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. It's a much healthier way of working. On a film, it's hard. It's 12, 14, 15 hours a day. I think I'm learning how to have a life and work on something like that. The real test will be having a family; when I have a family I'll have to because you have to come home, you have to eat dinner w/your kids and have to be there.

TeenHollywood: Do you have a mentor of some sort? Someone who helps pick scripts, or ideas when you're working on a character?

Maggie: My boyfriend (actor Peter Saarsgard) can be that for me. I have an acting teacher who's very helpful to me and she can be there for me too. I talk to my friends about it, my agents, my managers who are really smart and interested in not me becoming a commodity, but actually being an artist. So I have a lot of people around me who can talk to me about it. Then in the end, there's usually something in me that says I have to do this one. But it's something in me always.

TeenHollywood: Can you see yourself doing one of these big popcorn movies or is that not you?

Maggie: Yeah, I can. I would like to do a big movie that many, many people see but I just know I would be miserable if it didn't have something to it...if I couldn't do what I do in the midst of that. So I'm looking for something like that. None that have sparked me yet.

TeenHollywood: Actually all of your characters have a great sense of integrity. What about Valerie grabbed you?

Maggie: I think she was somebody who was really struggling in the face of people who were dishonest and bullying her. I think she was basically trying to survive it. That was a hard one. I didn't know I was going to feel like that to play it but that's how I felt. It's funny because people have been saying today that she's really strong , but I think she's definitely the weakest woman I've played. She's being bullied by somebody and she's just trying to function as well as she can.

TeenHollywood: Are you going to be taking a break soon?

Maggie: I'm doing this cartoon type movie...not cartoon exactly. It's the one where you put these lights on your face. Not CGI. Motion capture. Just 7 days quick. It's called Monster House. I play the disenchanted babysitter with these kids who are getting attacked by this house.

TeenHollywood: What do you do to pamper yourself in any downtime you have?

Maggie: I'm pretty good at indulging myself. I really like to travel. I'm about to go travel for a week. I like to get massaged, go into steam rooms. I take care of myself. I would like to have a home in the country that I could go to. First in this country and the other in the Mediterranean. The thing that I do that really helps me take care of myself is hang out with my girlfriends. I have a couple of girlfriends who are like healing. We take care of each other. They know when I need to be taken care of and I have yet to have them really take care of me but I really need to let them.

TeenHollywood: Where do you want to travel to?

Maggie: A good friend of mine just moved back from Nepal and spends a lot of time in India. I'd love to go to India with her, I think.

TeenHollywood: What advice would you give to young actresses in this town who want to have a career that's based on the integrity you have?

Maggie: I would say that you have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. That you're an artist who is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances, however difficult. You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you. I just don't know how you could. I mean every once in awhile you have to say yeah, I'm going to make this sacrifice to get this thing but for the most part, I don't think that's a good idea.

***

Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.