Quotes by Maggie Gyllenhaal

• You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Having an education is invaluable.
• 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.
• I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles. But I found them and did all of them just now.
• 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 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 liked that idea. Someone who's trying to perform herself and not succeeding.
• 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 studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.
• 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 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.