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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
Acting is really important to me, so I think it would be really hard for me to do something I didn't believe in.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
Having an education is invaluable.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles. But I found them and did all of them just now.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
I liked that idea. Someone who's trying to perform herself and not succeeding.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
I studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
I want to have some effect on the way the world works in whatever way I can, and I also want to have the power to help get the movies that I think are important made.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
I'm playing somebody who is a recovering drug addict who got out of prison. It takes place in 2 weeks-the 1st 2 weeks I'm out of prison.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
I'm pretty good at indulging myself. I'm about to go travel for a week. I like to get massaged, go into steam rooms. I take care of myself.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
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.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you.
-- Maggie Gyllenhaal
