Interview with Maggie Gyllenhaal, member of the Feature Film Jury

This year, you're on the side of the people awarding prizes. Now that we’re approaching the closing ceremony, how would you say you viewed the films? As an actress or a filmmaker? 

I have seen 19 films at this point, and I have five left to see. I’ve learnt so much being here, I have been inspired by the films I’ve seen, and I watched them both as a filmmaker and as an actress, which is what I am. I watch them with all the tools I have in myself. One thing I think is so interesting is that when we watch the films, everybody on the Jury is interesting and emotionally intelligent and yet, we feel differently about all of them. There has been no film that everyone has felt the same way about. I find that really interesting, particularly as a filmmaker whose film is about to come out. To realise that not everyone will like it. And what film does everyone like? There isn’t really one. So I really enjoyed that and I felt really inspired. I feel every film has given me something interesting to consider and think about, both as an artist and as a person. 

Speaking of making a film, this year was your first time as a director with The Lost Daughter, an adaptation of Elena Ferrante's novel "La Figlia Oscura". How different has the experience been from acting? 

In some ways, I think I hadn’t allowed myself to consider the possibility of being a director until a few years ago. As an actress, I have always been interested in story-telling. It’s the story I’m working to tell through acting. Much of the way I think about acting is directorial, and that’s not true for every actor. So a few years ago I allowed myself to listen to this voice that was inside me for a long time which said “I would like to make a film from start to finish”. It was heaven. It was hard work heaven.

What was it about the experience that affected you the most? 

I had incredibly valuable collaborations with my Director of Photography, with my editor, and with my incredible actors. One thing I felt I stressed so much was my ability to choose the actors who I thought would be the most compelling, interesting and unusual. And I guess in terms of my experience I felt that the preparation was very new and I loved it. My Director of Photography insisted on a huge amount of prep which I was so grateful for when we ended up on set together. A lot of preparation allows you real freedom on set. We were a very small movie, we shot very quickly in 28 days, and being on set felt very natural to me of course, as I have experienced it many times in my life.

I also loved the editing process. I felt that after a while, my editor and I were reading each other’s minds. I found the most difficult part of the editing process was that I had the whole film in my head, in my arms, in my body, and then the process of laying out everything that I intended, one small moment at the time, and allowing that to shift and change as we worked together with the editor, it was incredible. I loved it. 

Your brother Jake was a member of the Jury in 2015: do you usually talk about the movies you both star in? 

I don’t talk to him about my film choices, but I don’t really talk to anybody about them. To me, if I am presented with a project where I have to ask everybody what they think, I know right away that it’s not the right project for me. Pretty much, I don’t always get what I want but when I read or see something that I know is right for me, I know. My brother saw my film early on and he was one of my early viewers along with a few of my dearest and closest friends and colleagues, and he was wonderful. 

One thing my brother said to me before we did the sound mix, is that one of his favourite parts of filmmaking is the sound. He said “You’re about to climb the sound mountain”. And it was true. This part of the process was very new to me and I hadn’t realised it until now. I really enjoyed what a huge effect and how incredibly specific I was about what I wanted, not just the score but the actual sound design to be. I didn’t know if I would know what I wanted, and I really did, just inside me. That was cool. 

You are here in Cannes watching all kinds of films. What kinds of films do you usually like to watch?

I like to watch films that make me think and feel about something in a new way, that kind of stretch me. I like to feel that something is being articulated that is true about the world. And maybe something I haven’t seen articulated before.