Maggie Gyllenhaal: Dark Lady

Jake Gyllenhaal's sis Maggie has been called an "indie queen" for her participation in independent movies like Secretary in 2002 but she is also familiar from her work in mainstream films like World Trade Center and Mona Lisa Smile. When she was offered the role of lawyer/Batman-main-squeeze Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight, classy Maggie wanted to check first with Katie Holmes who played the part in the film's predecessor Batman Begins. Once she got the okay from Katie, Maggie decided to go for it bigtime and make Rachel all that she could be!

Maggie has a young daughter with her handsome partner actor Peter Sarsgaard but hey, she's not oblivious to the hunk factor in this male-dominated movie! What's it like to be the only girl surrounded by a bevy of hot, brooding guys? Really fun, according to the actress who was stoked by looking at a poster for the film, seeing all the guys and, on the femme side, just her! We had a sit-down with Maggie in Beverly Hills. She was all casual in pants topped by beige and black stripe sweater and a gold heart necklace. So, let's get the info on acting with all those hot and ultra-talented guys....

TeenHollywood; This film is really guy-driven, unlike Mona Lisa Smile which featured a big group of women. Is the dynamic on the set just different?

Maggie: There's something really great about both. I was looking at the poster behind a journalist's head and it was like [pointing] man, man, man, man, man, man and me! [she giggles]. There's something cool about that! When you're acting with people who are really great, it's easier and it's more fun. I guess it was important to me, when I met Chris [Nolan, the director] about doing it, that Rachel would be somebody who was a full-thinking woman, fierce and funny and smart and really someone with a mind which is not always the case in a big summer blockbuster. If there wasn't room for that, it wouldn't have been fun acting with all these great people. I think it was important to Chris as well that she be that way.

TeenHollywood: This isn't the kind of movie you would normally take on. What was the attraction for you?

Maggie: I think that, on some level, if it were this sort of big, dumb summer blockbuster movie, which it isn't, then yeah, I understand what you are saying but, truthfully, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine and Aaron Eckhart and Christian Bale and Heath Ledger and Morgan Freeman and a great director? It isn't really all that different from anything I've ever done. Also, although it is a fantasy on some level, the circumstances are larger than life, Chris, I think, really wanted all of us to play the scenes for truth so it didn't feel very different to me.

TeenHollywood: How was it to play the love interest for Batman and Harvey Dent [Aaron Eckhart] as well?

Maggie: [laughing] I mean how do you think it feels? I know it's an enviable position but I also tried to make it as difficult for myself as I could. I decided that she really had to love them both absolutely equally and then it does become a problem.

TeenHollywood: Ah, the ole love triangle! The role was played by Katie Holmes in the first film. Did you take anything from her performance and was there any hesitation in taking the role?

Maggie: Before I decided to do the movie, I wanted to make sure I had her blessing. I didn't want to do it if it wasn't okay with her and I was assured that I absolutely did. I'm a fan of hers. I think she's a lovely actress. I know her a tiny, tiny bit just here and there and I really admire what she did in the previous movie and, at the same time, I knew that it would be impossible to imitate her and I would be horrible at that. The only thing that I really could do was think of [Rachel] as a new woman. At the same time, there are some plot points, some narrative stuff in the previous movie that's really important to this movie that she built. Like, at the end of the last movie, she said to Bruce Wayne, 'you know, I love you and I understand that you need to be Batman but I can't be with you if you're Batman' and that, of course, plays all the way through this movie. So, of course, what she did is resonating in this movie also.

TeenHollywood: Were you familiar with the whole Batman mythology? Did you have to get a crash course?

Maggie: No, I didn't know about it. I didn't really care about it at first either and I didn't really have to think about it for a while because the movie seemed so real and I would almost like forget I was in a Batman movie.

TeenHollywood: When did it really hit you? Seeing Christian in the full Batman suit?

Maggie: There was one time that I'm doing a scene and I'm taking it really seriously and some awful thing had happened and all of a sudden I say, 'Believe me. Bruce Wayne's penthouse is the safest place in Gotham' [she laughs]. 'Oh, right. I'm in a Batman movie!' Then, I sort of hit the beat and the music swelled and it was great! Then later, I did the stunt stuff and I was pushed off the building and Batman grabs me in the cape and saves me from death and I loved it and I kind of got it. Now that I've been in the movie, I can feel how important Batman and the Batman mythology and the movies and the comics are to so many people. I just hope that I have done justice to what's in their imaginations. I think about it very, very differently now.

TeenHollywood: What about doing the action sequences, was that very different for you, falling off the building?

Maggie: I'd never done anything like that before. We shot big chunks of that stuff at once so I actually got to experience some of what it would actually feel like. Of course, I didn't drop from a 300 foot or story building or whatever but it looked like I did. It was easy to pretend that was what was happening. There was still acting in the midst of that though and it was fun.

TeenHollywood: Rachel has a wonderful wardrobe from tailored to really slinky. Did they let you keep anything and was there anything you were especially fond of?

Maggie: It's funny. The thing I loved the most is barely in the movie. I guess I should have worn it in a bigger scene or something. It was a beautiful jacket. All my clothes were made for me.

TeenHollywood: Wow!

Maggie: I know! That's where you feel the difference between the indie movie and a blockbuster! [laughter].

TeenHollywood: In an indie movie they ask you to bring your own clothes.

Maggie: [laughs] Yeah. I had a seven month old when I started making this movie and a fourteen-month old when I finished and I stopped nursing her in the middle. I was surprised that you couldn't tell when you watch the movie but the wardrobe woman was unbelievable. She tailored all the clothes for me and she somehow nipped 'um and tucked 'um when I changed. I really loved her. Also, on a set that didn't have many women, it was great to have this great woman [Lindy Hemming] there. This jacket I liked was a beautiful black jacket with a high collar. I wonder if you really see it? It's in the scene where I'm sitting on the stage with Harvey Dent. It's a moment of chaos and I'm reaching for him and I'm [thinking about] wearing this great jacket.

TeenHollywood: Being a mom now, are you more selective in the things you do based upon where they are filmed, etc.?

Maggie: Absolutely. Yeah. It's very hard to get me away from her. When this movie came along, I wasn't interested in working but I had to do this. It was just too good! But, then for a long time afterward, I didn't work at all. Then, at some point, when my daughter was maybe fifteen months, I thought 'I really want to work now'. And I started to think, 'you know what? I'll do anything. I just really want to work'. And I'd read something and I'd think 'well, not anything' [laughter] and that started to happen so much that I started to think, 'do I really want to work?' because I was just turning everything down.

TeenHollywood: What did you accept then?

Maggie: I did a movie with [director] Sam Mendes that I finished in the spring. Now, I'm really looking for something but it's hard. The Mendes movie is Farlanders. I'm in it with John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. It's a comedy and I play a woman who is a real hippy mom, into attachment parenting. Everyone sleeps in the same bed. She's still nursing her four-year-old.

TeenHollywood: Strange! Are you also doing something called South Solitary?

Maggie: South Solitary is a script that I like. It's a tiny movie. The truth is, nobody finances tiny movies anymore. There's so many movies I like that I hope will get their money together but it's a different world than it was when I first started making independent movies.

TeenHollywood: Does that sadden you? Are you frustrated by it?

Maggie: I don't in any way credit myself as having started the independent film stuff but I was a real part of it and I feel like things are soooo different now. You can't make a movie for three million dollars with like a kind of known actor in it. It's impossible and it has to do with, in general, the financial state of the country. It's tough for everybody in every business. But independent movies have really suffered I think.

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