March 24, 2026 • 42 mins
Maggie Gyllenhaal's in a good place right now, at least as far as work and family go. Her latest starring role is as a troubled teacher named Lisa Spinelli in The Kindergarten Teacher. It's an unsettling portrayal of, as Gyllenhaal tells Alec, the "f***ing dire" consequences of "starving a vibrant woman's mind." In the film, Lisa's mind-starvation manifests in an unhealthy, exploitative relationship with a kindergartner. It's not an easy thing to watch, and Gyllenhaal tells Alec, "I almost didn't do the movie because I thought, 'no movie is worth disturbing a child, even for a few minutes.'" But her concerns were addressed, she said yes, and the result is a performance Gyllenhaal feels really good about. In fact, she says she feels better and better about each role she takes on these days. It's from this career high that she and Alec talk about The Deuce, her college years, her alternate career in skating, and the happy joining of lives, careers, and vowels in her marriage to Peter Sarsgaard.
Originally aired October 9, 2018.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
the thing, I admit. I looked at Maggie Jillenhall's Wikipedia
page and it does get.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Some things right.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
She was nominated for an Academy Award for her work
in Crazy Heart. She did get a Golden Globe Award
for her performance in the British TV show The Honorable Woman.
Maggie gillen Hall has worked in big budget films like
The Dark Knight and Nanny McPhee, but still finds time
for off Broadway plays. She did graduate from Columbia University
(00:38):
and she is married to the actor Peter Sarsgard, but
she did not appear in a production of Uncle Vanya,
directed by Martin Scorsese. Her new movie is The Kindergarten
Teacher and it comes out this Friday from Netflix. I
spoke with Jillen Hall last Friday at the Hampton's International
Film Festival Live at the Bay Street Theatre in sag Harbor.
(01:01):
You were born in New York and raised in LA
and what was your childhood like in terms of film
culture theater where you're like a big maven and you
watched everything. Were you home watching Gilligan's Island like the
rest of us.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, my parents were from New York. Well, my dad
was from Pennsylvania. My mom was from New York, from Brooklyn,
and they were kind of new to LA you know.
They were filmmakers and they drove across the country with
me when I was I think ten months old.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
They were not there to make movies.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, and so they were lovers of movies. I
don't know. I wasn't really allowed to watch like Gilligan's Island,
to be honest, it's kind of that's good range. But
I was allowed to watch Sesame Street. My mom actually
was one of the people who she was like a
pa on Sesame Street. She was one of the people
(01:52):
who started the electric company. So I was allowed to
watch those and the Cosby Show that was what it's
allowed to watch. And a little bit of a Little
House on the Prairie, And after Little House in the
Prairie came on Chips and I was like, I kind
(02:12):
of like snuck in a little Chips.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
What what? Okay? So what was it the Julia to Chips?
What'd you like about Chips?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I was really, can I be honest with you, that
was like one of the first kind of like whoa,
what is this feeling I'm feeling type of moment.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Likes motorcycle, like the.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Drivers and yeah, just the beginning, just the credits.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That was like, all, I that's why I like Gilligan's Island,
Remote Island Women There, Marion Ginger.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That was the first time I had some of those
feelings you have.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, But then my parents, It's funny, they were they
loved movies and every weekend we would go see a
movie for a long time, and they took us to
a lot of things that I would never have taken
my kids too, like really not appropriate.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So your parents are like they don't want you to
watch certain kind of TV. But then when you don't,
look now you know what I mean, they want to
go see like really eclectic films.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But it was really my husband who was like, oh,
you haven't seen this, you haven't seen Cassavetti's, you haven't
seen this, you haven't seen that, and like really clued
me into and also to you know, cool seventies movies
but also like really amazing actresses. I feel like he's
such as well, Like he showed me all the General
Rolands movies. He was. He used to tell me, I
(03:32):
feels are embarrassing saying this, because it was like a
sort of a I think he was just flirting with me,
but he's saying he thought I reminded him of Diane Keaton,
like only in my wildest dreams. I mean, she's amazing.
But he showed me some of her like great movies.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And I wanted to dinner with Peter once with another
girlfriend of his, and he said the same thing to her,
you remind me of Diane Keaton.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It totally works. Yeah, it totally works.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It works like a charm.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Young guys out there, keep that in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But he's a movie nut, well expand he.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Really taught me like here's some here's some things that
that you should see. And then still we were actually
joking that someone was telling us we had to see
the Watergate documentary and I was like, yeah, that's like
a Peter date night movie. Like he's like, we have
a moment together. Actually, oh do you know that movie, Gomorah.
It's an amazing movie, but it is brutal. And he's like, oh,
(04:29):
we're just about to get married right near here. I
heard this movie is great. Let's go see Gomora, Yeah,
you know, or white Ribbon. He took me on.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Thanksgiving one. Let's watch straw Dogs.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Totally, you guys should go Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So when you you grew up in LA and your
parents are making films and you start acting when you're
there when you're very young.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I mean not really, it's funny. I I think it's
in my Wikipedia page, like some of the other very
untrue things we were talking.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Your Wikipedia page is a mess.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
We're going to get to that. That that I that
my debut was in Waterland, you know, which was a
movie that my dad made. And in fact I saw
Waterland just the other day because they did a screening
of it at Colombian and invited my dad, and so
I went up to see it. I am in Waterland
for five seconds. And my dad had been making the
(05:25):
movie in London and they had maybe four weeks in
Pittsburgh and I was in school in LA and it
was like a way I could go see my dad.
It wasn't really my film debut.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Now, when you when you went to Columbia, where'd you
go study?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I studied English literature.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You didn't want to study theater drama.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I started doing plays there I did. I did a
lot first. I mean I had one teacher there who
I learned a lot from, this woman, Joan Rosenfels. But
I don't know. I guess I was a Columbian. I
sort of felt like Columbia, like I should study Columbia
does best?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Were not acting?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, I tell people that now.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Who are students who go to degree granting universities for drama?
And I say, don't just take drama and acting. Take
something where you're.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Going to read a lot of books, philosophy and the
nature history. But you're there, get to do. What's the
first production you do in New York? Do you remember?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Like my first one?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You had to Columbia? You did plays? What did you do?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
What did I do at Columbia was the first one? Oh?
I did a student production of No Exit with this
guy who became my boyfriend named Dante, who was actually
twenty five and had already graduated from college.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
He was in a student's production.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Doctor.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, he's sweet.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Me in prison. Now that happened correctly.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I did that. I also did The Tempest and
I played prosper in that too. No, no, no, he
didn't make it in that one, but yeah, that was
the first one. Was no exit when.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
When you graduated with a degree in literature, was acting
the goals or that what you wanted to do?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah? I did. I always wanted to be an actress.
And I feel like, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, and college
you can read. Although there's so much you're supposed to read,
I feel like I never had read all of it.
But I feel like I really learned to write in college.
And I don't know about you, but I feel like
there's been so many times where I've had, you know,
(07:33):
lines I wanted changed, or a cut that I wanted shifted,
or something I had to sort out on a set
that I had to write an email or even have
a conversation where I had to organize my thoughts before
I had it. Where I think, thank god I went
to college because I was able to say what I
(07:53):
meant to say.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
You know what helps if.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You have that background, Because did you feel there was
progression for you?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
In the beginning?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
You were timid and shot, you know, less assertive, And
I want to find out when did that begin to change.
Was there a moment you sat there and you said,
I need to defend my position and I think I
know what's best for me.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I think, you know, I don't know that it was.
I think basically it was progressive, right, like basically right.
I was younger and newer, and it was harder for
me to say what I wanted, and it's gotten easier
as I've had more experience. But I also think that
different sets give way to a different way of working.
(08:39):
So first, I'm a jobbing actress and I'm trying to
get jobs and I come in for two days or
one afternoon or whatever, and you're like, oh, okay, you
want me to do it like that. I know, I
don't know. It doesn't sound really very good to me,
but I'm afraid to say, let's say, or maybe I
do try to say and I get shut down and
(09:01):
I accept it and whatever. That's like, you know, it's
very hard to do when you're coming in for one second.
It's like going to a new school where everybody knows
each other and you're there for an afternoon. But then
like when I worked on Secretary, which was really early on,
I mean I was twenty two, I had a real
(09:23):
point of view about what I wanted to say. And
Steve Shanberg, who directed it was really interested in that.
And I also think he knew that things were happening
that I didn't have any idea were happening.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wasn't all on the page.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And also my twenty two I think I'm being very intellectual,
and I've come from college and I studied feminist theory
and everything, you know, and I think I'm saying this,
and I think, I mean, he's twenty years older than me,
that he was able to see. I know she thinks
she's saying this, but this whole other thing is also happening.
(10:00):
Put all that in the film. But so that was
a space where I felt I was totally able to collaborative. Yes,
And then I went to work on a movie after that,
which I won't name, where I was totally shut down
and I was shocked by it.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I always remember, like you go to a movie and
this is just you know, my opinion, but like you
do a film and you want to be told what
to do. Basically, my whole thing is you're making the movie.
What movie are you making? How do I fit in?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I do.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
One of the first movies I did, I was lucky.
I did this movie Working Girl with Mike Nichols, and
Nichols says, you're.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Gonna have sex.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
He goes, you're gonna have sex with this woman and
she catches you having sex? How would you have sex
that are being caught? And I go, well, and I
try to think of, like what's the most comical thing,
and he goes, he goes, he was very gracious. He's like,
that's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea.
But what I think really sells it if she's just
(10:55):
completely naked and you're completely naked, and she's just sitting
right on top of you and me and they actually
were like, oh, we had a much more chaste and
kind of like silly version of that.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And me and the girl were like. He was like, okay,
come come now, close off, let's go.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But then idea of that clarity time saving somebody who
comes as.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
As this, Yeah, but the thing is, well, I always
use my fantasy movie I would have made with Mike
Nichols as like the example of if Mike Nichols is
directing this, yes, I want to be told exactly what
to do, please, Like I watch his movies and I'm like,
he's directing everybody. He's like pushing everybody further and deeper
(11:41):
and funnier and wilder than they ever would go. In fact,
the one time I worked with Mike Nichols was on
this reading. It's not a not a movie or even
a play that was ever produced. It was just a
few day long reading of a play that Alan Alda wrote.
Bob Ballaban directed the reading, but Mike was sort of
producing it. I guess he came up to me after
(12:05):
a day of rehearsal and he just said, she's feral
the character. And I've often thought that was the best
direction I've ever gotten, because it doesn't say, like, you know,
I don't know directors ever come up to you and
say like, I'm worried that we're not going to tell
that you're mad because you're acting so nice, and I'm
(12:27):
worried that it's not going to communicate, you know, Or
I'm afraid that you're going too far in this direction,
or I'm afraid that you're, you know, gonna confuse people
by something that you're doing. I have been told that before,
but Mike Nichols is basically going, like, go further, like
in any direction you could possibly go, Like what he
(12:48):
said to you, you know, go all the way she's feral.
I was playing Murray Currie and he's saying like she's
a wild animal.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
She's a wildcat.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Because the other parts taken care of. She's Marie Curie.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know, all the French radiologists knew that background. She
was wild, that Marie Currie.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So I want to be told what to do. Yes,
I wish for that kind of collaboration, but I don't.
I don't go in expecting that it's going to happen.
I wanted who.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Was a director you worked with, because I think you
and I maybe share this what you said where we're
not out to offend anyone, but you don't think of
somebody who it was really just great you loved working with.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Other than your current collaboration. We're going to get to that,
which I did love.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
My current collaboration. I have a few that I've really loved.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Martin Scorsese on Vanya, right that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Martin Scorsese directed, supposedly according to Wikipedia, me and my.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Husband and and uncle Vanya.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
At CSC's a good tiny black box theater in New York.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Is a Martin Scorsese directed the check out and I'm going,
my god, this is like the seismic thing that got
by me. It's like, it's like someone will come to going,
you know, the Lindberg baby was kidnapped, right totally.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
And then in this Wikipedia entry that Alec just showed me,
it then goes on to quote a terrible review of
me in the play.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's not a good section of that not direct No, but.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Austin Pendleton did. And he is one of the most
incredible directors I've ever worked with in my life. Austin.
It's funny Austin asked me to do uh Uncle Vanya
and he when when they offered it to me, they
sent me this interview with Austin and it basically talks
about this sort of incredible way that he likes to
(14:48):
work with actors, you know, where everyone's free to respond
to each other in the moment on stage. You know,
all the fantasies that actors have of a way that
you could actually really work together, which rarely happens. And
I was like, Austin, I'd love to do this, I'd
love to work this way, you know, where it's all
just reacting to the reality of the moment with the
(15:08):
other person on stage and how everybody says that's what
they want to do, how are you actually going to
do it? And he's like, well, you got to come
and work with me to find out. And the truth is,
I don't know how he created this situation where everybody
on stage had deep respect for each other, even though
(15:32):
it was clear to me that there were actors who
were stronger than others that there were, but it made
no difference, you know. I know one way he did it.
I remember the first day of rehearsal, he said, however,
you imagined Sonia, whatever fantasy you had of who Sonya
was going to be when you read this play, Sonia
(15:52):
is her. Sonia's this person, and all the feelings you
have about this person, about the way that that ricochets
off what you anticipated when you read the play, that's
all useful. But Sonya is her. And so we did
create this little black box theater situation where and I
did it with my husband and he's a brilliant actor,
(16:15):
so that was cool. And we got to pretend we
were having an affair. Both checkofs we did. We were
playing people who were having affairs, which was really hot
and great, you know, but I loved working with Austin.
I also loved I loved Hugo Blick, who directed The
Honorable Woman.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
You got a Golden Club for that. Yeah, that was
that you mentioned me. That was one of the longest
times you were overseas and away from home.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, and it's funny. I really admire what you said
about how for you your trust is a director's to lose.
I wish I could be like that, but I'm not.
And I go in with my guard up and secretly
(17:05):
I want the deepest, most intense artistic collaboration possible, but
I don't. It's not easy for me. And with Hugo,
I think we were both like that. And you know,
it was eight hours of television. I'd only ever done
a two hour movie before. I didn't know how to
(17:26):
do that. And I'm in every minute of every scene
and it's super intense. Yeah, and it could have been terrible,
you know. But I remember about two thirds of the
way through, somebody I came over to him and I
just sort of said something in his ear about the scene. Oh,
I think we need to shift this and actually can
we move this here? And could this happen over here?
Just almost shorthand at this point, and he was like, yeah, absolutely,
(17:48):
and someone sitting next to him said, do you just
do whatever she says? And he said he's English. Also
he said I trust her completely like that, and I
took it in like, whoa, Actually he was kidding, but
I kind of think he does. And then at the
very end, on the very very last day, I had
(18:09):
this voiceover to record which plays at the beginning of
every episode, and it's basically about trust, and it basically,
I think it says something like you have to just
I mean not in these words, but what it meant
was you either trust nobody or you just jump off
(18:30):
the cliff and you trust. And I was like, he'd
put me in this little room to record it because
we'd forgotten to record it, and I was like, you go,
do you mind if I say it to you? And
so he came in the room with me, and I
basically the subtext I guess of what I was saying
to him was I trust you.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Maggie Jillenhall, she said in an interview, but she would
probably be a different person by the end of her
work on The Honorable Woman. This is Alec Baldwin and
(19:28):
you're listening to. Here's the thing. Sarah Colangelo directed Maggie
Jillenhole's new movie, The Kindergarten Teacher. Jillen Houll told me
she heard about the project at a holiday party.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Two people at the party said, have you heard about
this script The Kindergarten Teacher? It's coming to you And
I don't know about you, but for me, and it's great.
And for me, I think it's really really rare to
read a great script, and also to have two people
in one night out of nowhere to say like, there's
this great script and it's coming to you. I was like, okay, okay.
(20:02):
I was waiting every day after that for the script
to come, and it took a while, and when it came,
I read it and I I had that feeling like
you just I've had it like three times, you know
where I was like, and also, if you have seen
the movie, and I won't give anything away, the ending
is pretty great. And I closed the last page of
(20:24):
the script and I was like, I want this movie,
you know. And it wasn't clear to me that it
was offered to me, which actually just increased my appetite
for it more. Of course, they say now it always was,
but I didn't know that, and one of the producer's
mothers was having an operation in the hospital, and like
nobody got back to me for a few days after
I like really energetically raised my hand and was like, yes, please,
(20:47):
what do I gotta do? And again, just waiting just
made me want it more. And then then they came
back and they were like, oh, yes, we always meant to.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It's based on an Israeli movie, which I haven't seen. Literally, yeah, yeah,
I mean I probably should see it now. I've heard
wonderful things about it, and I've heard that narratively it's
very similar, and yet it tells an almost entirely different story.
So our movie, I think, is really about the consequences
(21:22):
of what happens when you starve a vibrant woman's mind,
told from the point of view of a group of
women filmmakers, and our conclusion is that it's fucking dire,
you know. That's and I think this Israeli movie, which
has a very similar narrative, is much more about masculinity
(21:47):
in Israel and art in a country at war, and
very different things, even though the story itself is very similar.
So yeah, so I got the script then and I
signed up and then, you know, it was not easy
to get our money. In fact, at Sundance when we
first premiered, I shook the hands of fifty executive producers
(22:09):
who had, you know, all together somehow helped us cobble
together the money to make it. So we spent a
while doing that, and then we made it in twenty
three days in New York.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
In New York, now, when you work with.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
This sounds like a silly thing, but I always think
about this in terms of the brevity of schedules now
and the pressure to shoot efficiently now.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
But with children, I find it's very specific.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
And in the movie from My Money, the young boy
what's his name.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Jimmy Parker Parker, the boy who we had the funniest
moment yesterday because I said, this kid's fantastic after the movie,
and somebody from the festival said.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, he loves Boss Baby. He's like, how old is he?
Like five?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
He's six.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
So we got and I'm like, this is amazing. You're
doing like this really hypnotic, creepy drama, which is great.
And I'm in Boss Baby. I mean, you and I
have so much in common.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You and I. You know, we're both in the business,
different wings of the business.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Maybe Parker, but we had a lot of fun with him.
But when you're working with somebody, like a lot of
times kids are performing and the kids that climb the
ladder a little bit in that division, they're very you know,
they're ready to come, you know, sing tomorrow on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And he's not.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
No, he's very real.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, And was that a decision? You and she talked
about you and yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I mean I felt a couple of things very strongly.
I have a child who's six and who was five
when we made it, just like Parker's five, so it's
hard to remember what it's like to be five. I mean,
how different the world is unless you're five. You have
a five year old, I know, right yeah, or unless
you're living unless you're living with a five year old,
and then you're in that mind kind of. So I
(24:03):
felt two things. I felt. I almost didn't do the
movie at one point because I thought, no movie, no
matter how much I love it or think it's important
or whatever, is worth disturbing a child, even for a
few minutes. So I was like, how are we going
(24:24):
to do this? And I also don't think five six
year olds are actors. I just don't believe that, and
I don't think it's fair to ask them to be actors.
So I felt like so basically we worked in a
couple ways. I learned this from Emma Thompson, actually, who
I'm in love with, and who who did Nanny McFee.
We did Nani McFee together, and we had tons of kids,
and so often, especially with the very littlest one, we
(24:47):
would just be like, stand on the X now, look
at that big black X on the on the wall,
and turn your head when I say so when I clap,
turn your head and say I don't want to go,
and he would we would clap, turn his head, he'd
say I don't want to go, and I would say no, no, no,
sing it like me, I don't want to go, I
want to go. No, and then he would just sort
(25:08):
of repeat. I would be like, you have to sing
it like to Parker sing it, and so then he'd
kind of just imitate my inflections. That was one way
we worked with him, so that it was just a song.
It wasn't like he actually you can't say to a
five year old I wanted to get in touch with
away and with you. I'm like, but the other thing
you can do with five year olds is that they
(25:31):
will forget that the camera's on them sort of. So
we ran all the kindergarten stuff as if it were
a kindergarten. I mean, you see them singing those songs
with me, or painting or you're not going to say, Okay,
we're going to pretend to paint, or we're going to
like pretend to write x's on a piece of paper.
We're just going to do it. And we choreographed the camera.
I would sort of see where the camera was going,
(25:53):
almost like a documentary, and then I would just like
scoot over to wherever the camera was and begin the
scene with whoever I needed to be talking to in
that scene. And then the other funny thing about kids
and the like short schedule is there were quite a
few times where I did scenes with our first ad
or our gaffer who would read off camera for me
(26:15):
because the little boy had to go. And I'd be like,
this is really weird, but huh, you know, like the
way you can trip yourself out as an actor kind
of and you can be like, oh, there's helicopters going
over all the time, we have to keep stopping the middle.
I'm really frustrated, and then all of a sudden, the
frustration just goes back into the scene. So this one,
(26:35):
I was like, oh, this is like a hairy fifty
year old guy with like a scrubby you know, beard,
you know, no, no, our first ad our, first d
And he's lying on the ground slating also, and I'd
be like, oh, but I'm okay. So I'm basically talking
to this child as if he's a man. You know,
you just figure out the way to throw it back
in because what else are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I'd love it if on my next film you would
come and do that ex acting with me. Would you
be there for me? It would be my mirror Rostova,
you know, like off the sack okay, and turned to me,
I said, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Want to go to prison. I don't want to go
to prison for TAXIV. I don't want to go to
prison for taxi vasion. You know we could do that.
You'd be my acting cart.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The now.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
What about Sarah? How many films had she made before
she made this film.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I loved working with Sarah and it was a totally
different kind of experience than I had ever had before,
and in some ways I like to think it's it
was a very feminine set. Right, Sarah wrote and directed it,
our financiers were women, our producers were women. It's all
about a woman. But I'd worked with a lot of
(27:53):
other women and had very different kinds directly, I have.
I've worked with many. I mean even on The Deuce
last season, seven out of eight directors were women.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
You know, is there a difference, Well.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
There is a difference, Yeah, there is, but that's not
necessarily what made I think my collaboration with Sarah and
are set on the kindergarten teacher. So I don't know, unusual. Yeah, feminine,
but I don't even totally know what that means. Even
when I watched the movie, I'm like, this is feminine,
(28:26):
Like what does that mean and why? And my husband
after he saw it last night, he was like, I
wish someone would send this to Senator Flake. But I
don't really know totally why. Right, it's not political movie,
but it's it's like somehow it's really kind of straight,
(28:49):
purely feminine thing. You know, it makes me think of
the piano, not this movie. I would never compare it
to that, But the experience I had when I saw
the Piano and I was like sixteen or something and
I had never seen anything like it, I was like, what, Like,
I guess I think in some ways, girls women my age,
(29:13):
we get so used to having to relate to a
male character or even let's just say like a sort
of masculine point of view on something. We're like, yeah, yeah,
that's not exactly my experience, but I could twist it
around and make it relatable to me, and that muscle
is very exercise. I think in most women we're like, yeah, yeah,
get I know it's not exactly my way through the world,
but I could. I could just twist a little and
(29:37):
it's cool. I get it, and thank God, because otherwise
we'd have very little to relate to. But then, like
when I saw the Piano, I was like, WHOA. I
also relaxed. I don't have to twist anything, and I
felt that way when I read Sarah's script, I just
like went straight.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
In and when I saw this last night, but I
loved it. It's not a bad I don't give it away,
but the dynamic of the home is not all bad.
But there's things that maybe in my mind you know,
are missing as soon as you want, yeah, gone and
connections and feelings exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
It's a much easier movie if her home life is
like if everything's just awful instead.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
See I'm not going to.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Give away the scene on the phone and your husband's like,
he's ready to, you know, do a little dance with you,
and then the phone rings. Oh my god, yeah, oh
my god.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Crazy. Yeah, really upsetting. See yeah, so fucked up.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Of the really fucked up scenes in this movie. That's incredible,
it's true.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
One more thing before we take some questions, do we
have the MIC's poised for the questions we do? Okay,
one last question I have for you, which is, so
you're doing the deuce you're on HBO.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
How did that happen? Meaning? How did they wheel you in?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean, I'm not just saying this for your benefit.
You're one of the most admired movie actresses in the business.
Everybody says this, everybody. You're you're you're gorgeous, and you're talented,
and you're all these things.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
So when you go to do the TV thing, how
did they hook you? Well?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Huh, I just it's so funny though, because like in
the first three episodes, which was all I read of
The Deuce, Candy didn't really have all that much to do,
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
That's why you took the job.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
No, but it's weird because I was just talking with
Peter about this when we were walking on the beach
here today. I was like, yeah, when I first there,
wasn't she turned so amazing. I mean, I love playing Candy,
I really do. But I just had like a feeling.
I don't know. I was It was David Simon and
George Pelicanos. I mean, they've made some pretty damn good
(31:42):
TV and I had done The Honorable Woman with Hugo,
who I told you I loved so much. So it
wasn't my first time in TV. I wasn't like snobby
about TV. I wanted it, you know. I wanted a
good job, you know that that I could count on
but also stay home, yes, and to be But also
I was like, I don't know, I just had a
good feeling. I was like, I just want to play
(32:03):
this woman. I want to I want to try it.
I want to see I want to see if I
can do this. It was so far outside of my
experience to play a sex worker in nineteen seventy one.
I just like liked her. I just had a I
just had like this feeling about it.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
You signed for three seasons, three seas, had a long contract.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
No, that's cool, and I guess I will. And you know,
there was this whole thing where I was like, guys,
I've only read three. There's going to be twenty four.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
How do I know?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
I mean, I think you guys are all right, but
what if this becomes something? I mean I never had
signed on something like that before. Well that's true, but again,
like I said, I don't trust that. Well, so I
asked them if I could be a producer. And the
thing is is when And everyone said to me, you
are never going to get that on a big HBO show.
(32:58):
You've never produced television before. You didn't develop it, like
good luck, Maggie. But then they were like, okay, let's
be partners. Good for you, And I was like, oh, wow,
for you?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Do we have a who do we have over here?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Sir? How did you prepare for your role as a teacher?
Did you interview teachers? Did you shadow teachers?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well? I yeah, I felt in this movie where this
woman ends up doing a lot of really problematic things.
The movie only really works if you are on her
side for a really, really long time. You're on her side,
even when she's crossing lines. You would never imagine you
would be on anyone side while they were crossing. And so,
(33:45):
you know, it was important to me that she'd be
a great teacher, like a really extraordinary teacher. So, yeah,
my daughter was. I had one older daughter that I
had a daughter who was in preschool, and I asked
her preschool teacher, do you know, like a great kinder
garden teacher who's not at this school because I didn't
really want to mix it with my kids' school. And
she recommended this woman on the Upper West Side. And
(34:06):
I went up there all the time, sat in our classroom.
I got so much from her. She had dinner with
Sarah and I once and gave us like some more tips.
But I yeah, shadowed her. I sat there for hours.
I learned a ton from her.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
She was great.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Somebody up there in the back.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
We saw your film last night, and your performance was stunning,
and I did want to thank you for that. I'm
wondering you picked such unconventional roles I can help. But
wonder if the role that you felt you executed the best,
was it the same role that your critics thought you
executed the best? You know from inside out? Does you
(34:46):
know do those two things match up for you to.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
You and your critics think the same.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Well, one thing I think is interesting you say that
they're unconventional roles. But I just when you said that word,
I thought, Actually, the thing I love about the few
roles that I've done that I feel the most proud
of that I think I executed the best. As you
put it, I think are actually sort of the most
(35:16):
human people, so maybe the most conventional in terms of
being like we actually are. And I know the woman
in the movie does things that many of us would
never ever do, but in so many other ways she's
like I relate to her so much, you know, she
totally could be a friend of mine. And even the
(35:37):
ways she's confused, or the fact that she's confused, I understand,
I have compassion for I don't know in terms of
I don't know about whether I guess I would say
this recently, I would say since the honorable woman, I
think I've had this feeling where I'm most proud of
(35:58):
the last thing I've done, which I feel really grateful for.
Like I feel like, Okay, I'm making the choices that
are right for me right now because I'm I feel
like I keep I don't know, learning about what I'm doing.
(36:18):
As time goes on. I'm sure I'll take a dip
and take a wrong route for a while, But at
the moment, it's been like I feel, yeah, the most
proud of the of the most recent work.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And an actor won't say to me, I was this
very funny guy, older god when he was very good.
He said, remember one thing about reviews. He said, when
they say you're bad, you're never as bad as they
say you are. I mean, if it's not great, you're
never as bad. And when they say you're really good,
you're great. You're always even.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Better than they said. People they're even better than that.
They never get it right. They don't know how.
Speaker 5 (36:53):
I know.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
That's so funny that like I got to like take
that little piece of that Wikipedia thing and like put
it up somewhere. This is so mean. With the Daily News,
the Daily Movie, they hated Maylena were right.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
There here, sir, who's straining out of your chair the
restroom is down to the right, sir, How do you
define feminine and masculine?
Speaker 5 (37:17):
No?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
See, I can't, That's what I'm saying. I don't want
to be reductive about it, and I can't define feminine
and masculine. I'm just trying to say there's like something
and it doesn't okay. I mean, I don't want to
get like super There's just things that are on my
mind right now, Like what does it mean to make
a feminine movie? I don't know the answer to that.
I just know that if you're living in a masculine
(37:38):
world fundamentally, which I'd say, it's pretty clear we are
even a misogynistic world, right. It's it doesn't just because
you're a woman who directs a movie, or just because
you're a woman who writes a movie, doesn't mean it's feminine.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
You have to twist yourself and fit yourself all your life.
Like Virginia Wolf in Room of One Zone has this
whole thing about how like even even Charlotte Bronte, she
said she's not really making purely feminine work because she's
like hiding her paper under her sewing or whatever. And
so that's what I mean when I say I saw
(38:16):
the piano and it had some like like an effect
on me. When I was sixteen, there I did this
interview with Trevor Noah.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
It was about the Deuce. Actually it wasn't about the
kindergarten Teacher, but he'd seen the preview for the kindergarten
Teacher and he was like, I saw the preview. He said,
is it a thriller or is it like an intimate
movie about a woman's mind? Or is it like a
horror movie? And I loved that, and I keep coming
back to it because I think it's not any of those.
(38:46):
It's new, and I think it might be new because
it's feminine. It doesn't tick the boxes we're used to.
But again, I don't know. I'm a little confus about this.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
We have just time for a couple more quick ones.
The lady right there on the able do two more,
two more quick ones.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I have a very quick question. If you weren't an actor,
what would you do or what would you want to do?
Oh man, I'm really I'm not good at very many
other things. I mean, I'm like an okay cook. I
have a friend who's a professor, which i'd love to think, like,
maybe I could be an English teacher or something, but
I wouldn't be any good at it. I mean, were
you good at other things?
Speaker 5 (39:34):
So good?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
You never I'm good at it. I'm so much better
to believe I'm so good and I'm not with you
that bad at any of it. It's just you never
read any thoughts about.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Maybe professional ice skating.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yes, okay, considering what you've said about literature and being
an English major, and you're probably a great reader.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
If you good option a book and do your movie
but not be in it, what would you do?
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Well?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
I did actually just option a book and I'm not
going to be in it. I'm adapting it and I'm
going to direct it. And it's called The Lost Daughter
by Elena Ferrante.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
All Right, so my last question is a two parter
because we're going to be out of time.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
My last question is a quick two parter. Now, I
had a very fleeting role in Looming Tower with your husband.
Got to work with your husband for the first time,
Peter Sarsguard. And my first question, which is the silly question,
is your husband really as sweet as he seems?
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yeah, I've ever met in my life he's a damn
good husband. I'm thrilled with him.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
And what's that like for you?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Being two people who are working all the time, very
successful movie actors. That's is it wonderful to be with
somebody who understands what you're going through? I'm married you,
it's not in the business.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
And sometimes yes, Like sometimes I'll be like, when are
you coming home? I don't understand when are you coming?
Like we have planned such and such, and he's like, Maggie,
you know, I don't know the answer to yeah, you know,
I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
My wife is like I watched Sometimes it's like, Alec,
why are you so dramatic?
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Duh?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Anyway, now you're telling all Everyboddy.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
And Now. An update after a newspaper story appeared about
this conversation, Jillen Hall's Wikipedia page has been revised. Maggie
Jillen Hall's new movie The Kindergarten Teacher comes out.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
On Netflix October twelfth. I'm like Baldwin, here's the thing.
Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
the thing, I admit. I looked at Maggie Jillenhall's Wikipedia
page and it does get.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Some things right.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
She was nominated for an Academy Award for her work
in Crazy Heart. She did get a Golden Globe Award
for her performance in the British TV show The Honorable Woman.
Maggie gillen Hall has worked in big budget films like
The Dark Knight and Nanny McPhee, but still finds time
for off Broadway plays. She did graduate from Columbia University
(00:38):
and she is married to the actor Peter Sarsgard, but
she did not appear in a production of Uncle Vanya,
directed by Martin Scorsese. Her new movie is The Kindergarten
Teacher and it comes out this Friday from Netflix. I
spoke with Jillen Hall last Friday at the Hampton's International
Film Festival Live at the Bay Street Theatre in sag Harbor.
(01:01):
You were born in New York and raised in LA
and what was your childhood like in terms of film
culture theater where you're like a big maven and you
watched everything. Were you home watching Gilligan's Island like the
rest of us.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, my parents were from New York. Well, my dad
was from Pennsylvania. My mom was from New York, from Brooklyn,
and they were kind of new to LA you know.
They were filmmakers and they drove across the country with
me when I was I think ten months old.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
They were not there to make movies.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, and so they were lovers of movies. I
don't know. I wasn't really allowed to watch like Gilligan's Island,
to be honest, it's kind of that's good range. But
I was allowed to watch Sesame Street. My mom actually
was one of the people who she was like a
pa on Sesame Street. She was one of the people
(01:52):
who started the electric company. So I was allowed to
watch those and the Cosby Show that was what it's
allowed to watch. And a little bit of a Little
House on the Prairie, And after Little House in the
Prairie came on Chips and I was like, I kind
(02:12):
of like snuck in a little Chips.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
What what? Okay? So what was it the Julia to Chips?
What'd you like about Chips?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I was really, can I be honest with you, that
was like one of the first kind of like whoa,
what is this feeling I'm feeling type of moment.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Likes motorcycle, like the.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Drivers and yeah, just the beginning, just the credits.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That was like, all, I that's why I like Gilligan's Island,
Remote Island Women There, Marion Ginger.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
That was the first time I had some of those
feelings you have.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, But then my parents, It's funny, they were they
loved movies and every weekend we would go see a
movie for a long time, and they took us to
a lot of things that I would never have taken
my kids too, like really not appropriate.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So your parents are like they don't want you to
watch certain kind of TV. But then when you don't,
look now you know what I mean, they want to
go see like really eclectic films.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But it was really my husband who was like, oh,
you haven't seen this, you haven't seen Cassavetti's, you haven't
seen this, you haven't seen that, and like really clued
me into and also to you know, cool seventies movies
but also like really amazing actresses. I feel like he's
such as well, Like he showed me all the General
Rolands movies. He was. He used to tell me, I
(03:32):
feels are embarrassing saying this, because it was like a
sort of a I think he was just flirting with me,
but he's saying he thought I reminded him of Diane Keaton,
like only in my wildest dreams. I mean, she's amazing.
But he showed me some of her like great movies.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And I wanted to dinner with Peter once with another
girlfriend of his, and he said the same thing to her,
you remind me of Diane Keaton.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
It totally works. Yeah, it totally works.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It works like a charm.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Young guys out there, keep that in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But he's a movie nut, well expand he.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Really taught me like here's some here's some things that
that you should see. And then still we were actually
joking that someone was telling us we had to see
the Watergate documentary and I was like, yeah, that's like
a Peter date night movie. Like he's like, we have
a moment together. Actually, oh do you know that movie, Gomorah.
It's an amazing movie, but it is brutal. And he's like, oh,
(04:29):
we're just about to get married right near here. I
heard this movie is great. Let's go see Gomora, Yeah,
you know, or white Ribbon. He took me on.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Thanksgiving one. Let's watch straw Dogs.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Totally, you guys should go Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So when you you grew up in LA and your
parents are making films and you start acting when you're
there when you're very young.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I mean not really, it's funny. I I think it's
in my Wikipedia page, like some of the other very
untrue things we were talking.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Your Wikipedia page is a mess.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
We're going to get to that. That that I that
my debut was in Waterland, you know, which was a
movie that my dad made. And in fact I saw
Waterland just the other day because they did a screening
of it at Colombian and invited my dad, and so
I went up to see it. I am in Waterland
for five seconds. And my dad had been making the
(05:25):
movie in London and they had maybe four weeks in
Pittsburgh and I was in school in LA and it
was like a way I could go see my dad.
It wasn't really my film debut.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Now, when you when you went to Columbia, where'd you
go study?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
I studied English literature.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You didn't want to study theater drama.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I started doing plays there I did. I did a
lot first. I mean I had one teacher there who
I learned a lot from, this woman, Joan Rosenfels. But
I don't know. I guess I was a Columbian. I
sort of felt like Columbia, like I should study Columbia
does best?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Were not acting?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, I tell people that now.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Who are students who go to degree granting universities for drama?
And I say, don't just take drama and acting. Take
something where you're.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Going to read a lot of books, philosophy and the
nature history. But you're there, get to do. What's the
first production you do in New York? Do you remember?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Like my first one?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You had to Columbia? You did plays? What did you do?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
What did I do at Columbia was the first one? Oh?
I did a student production of No Exit with this
guy who became my boyfriend named Dante, who was actually
twenty five and had already graduated from college.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
He was in a student's production.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Doctor.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, he's sweet.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Me in prison. Now that happened correctly.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I did that. I also did The Tempest and
I played prosper in that too. No, no, no, he
didn't make it in that one, but yeah, that was
the first one. Was no exit when.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
When you graduated with a degree in literature, was acting
the goals or that what you wanted to do?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah? I did. I always wanted to be an actress.
And I feel like, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, and college
you can read. Although there's so much you're supposed to read,
I feel like I never had read all of it.
But I feel like I really learned to write in college.
And I don't know about you, but I feel like
there's been so many times where I've had, you know,
(07:33):
lines I wanted changed, or a cut that I wanted shifted,
or something I had to sort out on a set
that I had to write an email or even have
a conversation where I had to organize my thoughts before
I had it. Where I think, thank god I went
to college because I was able to say what I
(07:53):
meant to say.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
You know what helps if.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You have that background, Because did you feel there was
progression for you?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
In the beginning?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
You were timid and shot, you know, less assertive, And
I want to find out when did that begin to change.
Was there a moment you sat there and you said,
I need to defend my position and I think I
know what's best for me.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I think, you know, I don't know that it was.
I think basically it was progressive, right, like basically right.
I was younger and newer, and it was harder for
me to say what I wanted, and it's gotten easier
as I've had more experience. But I also think that
different sets give way to a different way of working.
(08:39):
So first, I'm a jobbing actress and I'm trying to
get jobs and I come in for two days or
one afternoon or whatever, and you're like, oh, okay, you
want me to do it like that. I know, I
don't know. It doesn't sound really very good to me,
but I'm afraid to say, let's say, or maybe I
do try to say and I get shut down and
(09:01):
I accept it and whatever. That's like, you know, it's
very hard to do when you're coming in for one second.
It's like going to a new school where everybody knows
each other and you're there for an afternoon. But then
like when I worked on Secretary, which was really early on,
I mean I was twenty two, I had a real
(09:23):
point of view about what I wanted to say. And
Steve Shanberg, who directed it was really interested in that.
And I also think he knew that things were happening
that I didn't have any idea were happening.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wasn't all on the page.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And also my twenty two I think I'm being very intellectual,
and I've come from college and I studied feminist theory
and everything, you know, and I think I'm saying this,
and I think, I mean, he's twenty years older than me,
that he was able to see. I know she thinks
she's saying this, but this whole other thing is also happening.
(10:00):
Put all that in the film. But so that was
a space where I felt I was totally able to collaborative. Yes,
And then I went to work on a movie after that,
which I won't name, where I was totally shut down
and I was shocked by it.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I always remember, like you go to a movie and
this is just you know, my opinion, but like you
do a film and you want to be told what
to do. Basically, my whole thing is you're making the movie.
What movie are you making? How do I fit in?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I do.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
One of the first movies I did, I was lucky.
I did this movie Working Girl with Mike Nichols, and
Nichols says, you're.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Gonna have sex.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
He goes, you're gonna have sex with this woman and
she catches you having sex? How would you have sex
that are being caught? And I go, well, and I
try to think of, like what's the most comical thing,
and he goes, he goes, he was very gracious. He's like,
that's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea.
But what I think really sells it if she's just
(10:55):
completely naked and you're completely naked, and she's just sitting
right on top of you and me and they actually
were like, oh, we had a much more chaste and
kind of like silly version of that.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And me and the girl were like. He was like, okay,
come come now, close off, let's go.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But then idea of that clarity time saving somebody who
comes as.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
As this, Yeah, but the thing is, well, I always
use my fantasy movie I would have made with Mike
Nichols as like the example of if Mike Nichols is
directing this, yes, I want to be told exactly what
to do, please, Like I watch his movies and I'm like,
he's directing everybody. He's like pushing everybody further and deeper
(11:41):
and funnier and wilder than they ever would go. In fact,
the one time I worked with Mike Nichols was on
this reading. It's not a not a movie or even
a play that was ever produced. It was just a
few day long reading of a play that Alan Alda wrote.
Bob Ballaban directed the reading, but Mike was sort of
producing it. I guess he came up to me after
(12:05):
a day of rehearsal and he just said, she's feral
the character. And I've often thought that was the best
direction I've ever gotten, because it doesn't say, like, you know,
I don't know directors ever come up to you and
say like, I'm worried that we're not going to tell
that you're mad because you're acting so nice, and I'm
(12:27):
worried that it's not going to communicate, you know, Or
I'm afraid that you're going too far in this direction,
or I'm afraid that you're, you know, gonna confuse people
by something that you're doing. I have been told that before,
but Mike Nichols is basically going, like, go further, like
in any direction you could possibly go, Like what he
(12:48):
said to you, you know, go all the way she's feral.
I was playing Murray Currie and he's saying like she's
a wild animal.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
She's a wildcat.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Because the other parts taken care of. She's Marie Curie.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You know, all the French radiologists knew that background. She
was wild, that Marie Currie.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So I want to be told what to do. Yes,
I wish for that kind of collaboration, but I don't.
I don't go in expecting that it's going to happen.
I wanted who.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Was a director you worked with, because I think you
and I maybe share this what you said where we're
not out to offend anyone, but you don't think of
somebody who it was really just great you loved working with.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Other than your current collaboration. We're going to get to that,
which I did love.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
My current collaboration. I have a few that I've really loved.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Martin Scorsese on Vanya, right that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Martin Scorsese directed, supposedly according to Wikipedia, me and my.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Husband and and uncle Vanya.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
At CSC's a good tiny black box theater in New York.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Is a Martin Scorsese directed the check out and I'm going,
my god, this is like the seismic thing that got
by me. It's like, it's like someone will come to going,
you know, the Lindberg baby was kidnapped, right totally.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
And then in this Wikipedia entry that Alec just showed me,
it then goes on to quote a terrible review of
me in the play.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's not a good section of that not direct No, but.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Austin Pendleton did. And he is one of the most
incredible directors I've ever worked with in my life. Austin.
It's funny Austin asked me to do uh Uncle Vanya
and he when when they offered it to me, they
sent me this interview with Austin and it basically talks
about this sort of incredible way that he likes to
(14:48):
work with actors, you know, where everyone's free to respond
to each other in the moment on stage. You know,
all the fantasies that actors have of a way that
you could actually really work together, which rarely happens. And
I was like, Austin, I'd love to do this, I'd
love to work this way, you know, where it's all
just reacting to the reality of the moment with the
(15:08):
other person on stage and how everybody says that's what
they want to do, how are you actually going to
do it? And he's like, well, you got to come
and work with me to find out. And the truth is,
I don't know how he created this situation where everybody
on stage had deep respect for each other, even though
(15:32):
it was clear to me that there were actors who
were stronger than others that there were, but it made
no difference, you know. I know one way he did it.
I remember the first day of rehearsal, he said, however,
you imagined Sonia, whatever fantasy you had of who Sonya
was going to be when you read this play, Sonia
(15:52):
is her. Sonia's this person, and all the feelings you
have about this person, about the way that that ricochets
off what you anticipated when you read the play, that's
all useful. But Sonya is her. And so we did
create this little black box theater situation where and I
did it with my husband and he's a brilliant actor,
(16:15):
so that was cool. And we got to pretend we
were having an affair. Both checkofs we did. We were
playing people who were having affairs, which was really hot
and great, you know, but I loved working with Austin.
I also loved I loved Hugo Blick, who directed The
Honorable Woman.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
You got a Golden Club for that. Yeah, that was
that you mentioned me. That was one of the longest
times you were overseas and away from home.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, and it's funny. I really admire what you said
about how for you your trust is a director's to lose.
I wish I could be like that, but I'm not.
And I go in with my guard up and secretly
(17:05):
I want the deepest, most intense artistic collaboration possible, but
I don't. It's not easy for me. And with Hugo,
I think we were both like that. And you know,
it was eight hours of television. I'd only ever done
a two hour movie before. I didn't know how to
(17:26):
do that. And I'm in every minute of every scene
and it's super intense. Yeah, and it could have been terrible,
you know. But I remember about two thirds of the
way through, somebody I came over to him and I
just sort of said something in his ear about the scene. Oh,
I think we need to shift this and actually can
we move this here? And could this happen over here?
Just almost shorthand at this point, and he was like, yeah, absolutely,
(17:48):
and someone sitting next to him said, do you just
do whatever she says? And he said he's English. Also
he said I trust her completely like that, and I
took it in like, whoa, Actually he was kidding, but
I kind of think he does. And then at the
very end, on the very very last day, I had
(18:09):
this voiceover to record which plays at the beginning of
every episode, and it's basically about trust, and it basically,
I think it says something like you have to just
I mean not in these words, but what it meant
was you either trust nobody or you just jump off
(18:30):
the cliff and you trust. And I was like, he'd
put me in this little room to record it because
we'd forgotten to record it, and I was like, you go,
do you mind if I say it to you? And
so he came in the room with me, and I
basically the subtext I guess of what I was saying
to him was I trust you.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Maggie Jillenhall, she said in an interview, but she would
probably be a different person by the end of her
work on The Honorable Woman. This is Alec Baldwin and
(19:28):
you're listening to. Here's the thing. Sarah Colangelo directed Maggie
Jillenhole's new movie, The Kindergarten Teacher. Jillen Houll told me
she heard about the project at a holiday party.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Two people at the party said, have you heard about
this script The Kindergarten Teacher? It's coming to you And
I don't know about you, but for me, and it's great.
And for me, I think it's really really rare to
read a great script, and also to have two people
in one night out of nowhere to say like, there's
this great script and it's coming to you. I was like, okay, okay.
(20:02):
I was waiting every day after that for the script
to come, and it took a while, and when it came,
I read it and I I had that feeling like
you just I've had it like three times, you know
where I was like, and also, if you have seen
the movie, and I won't give anything away, the ending
is pretty great. And I closed the last page of
(20:24):
the script and I was like, I want this movie,
you know. And it wasn't clear to me that it
was offered to me, which actually just increased my appetite
for it more. Of course, they say now it always was,
but I didn't know that, and one of the producer's
mothers was having an operation in the hospital, and like
nobody got back to me for a few days after
I like really energetically raised my hand and was like, yes, please,
(20:47):
what do I gotta do? And again, just waiting just
made me want it more. And then then they came
back and they were like, oh, yes, we always meant to.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It's based on an Israeli movie, which I haven't seen. Literally, yeah, yeah,
I mean I probably should see it now. I've heard
wonderful things about it, and I've heard that narratively it's
very similar, and yet it tells an almost entirely different story.
So our movie, I think, is really about the consequences
(21:22):
of what happens when you starve a vibrant woman's mind,
told from the point of view of a group of
women filmmakers, and our conclusion is that it's fucking dire,
you know. That's and I think this Israeli movie, which
has a very similar narrative, is much more about masculinity
(21:47):
in Israel and art in a country at war, and
very different things, even though the story itself is very similar.
So yeah, so I got the script then and I
signed up and then, you know, it was not easy
to get our money. In fact, at Sundance when we
first premiered, I shook the hands of fifty executive producers
(22:09):
who had, you know, all together somehow helped us cobble
together the money to make it. So we spent a
while doing that, and then we made it in twenty
three days in New York.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
In New York, now, when you work with.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
This sounds like a silly thing, but I always think
about this in terms of the brevity of schedules now
and the pressure to shoot efficiently now.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
But with children, I find it's very specific.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
And in the movie from My Money, the young boy
what's his name.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Jimmy Parker Parker, the boy who we had the funniest
moment yesterday because I said, this kid's fantastic after the movie,
and somebody from the festival said.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, he loves Boss Baby. He's like, how old is he?
Like five?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
He's six.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
So we got and I'm like, this is amazing. You're
doing like this really hypnotic, creepy drama, which is great.
And I'm in Boss Baby. I mean, you and I
have so much in common.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You and I. You know, we're both in the business,
different wings of the business.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Maybe Parker, but we had a lot of fun with him.
But when you're working with somebody, like a lot of
times kids are performing and the kids that climb the
ladder a little bit in that division, they're very you know,
they're ready to come, you know, sing tomorrow on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
And he's not.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
No, he's very real.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, And was that a decision? You and she talked
about you and yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I mean I felt a couple of things very strongly.
I have a child who's six and who was five
when we made it, just like Parker's five, so it's
hard to remember what it's like to be five. I mean,
how different the world is unless you're five. You have
a five year old, I know, right yeah, or unless
you're living unless you're living with a five year old,
and then you're in that mind kind of. So I
(24:03):
felt two things. I felt. I almost didn't do the
movie at one point because I thought, no movie, no
matter how much I love it or think it's important
or whatever, is worth disturbing a child, even for a
few minutes. So I was like, how are we going
(24:24):
to do this? And I also don't think five six
year olds are actors. I just don't believe that, and
I don't think it's fair to ask them to be actors.
So I felt like so basically we worked in a
couple ways. I learned this from Emma Thompson, actually, who
I'm in love with, and who who did Nanny McFee.
We did Nani McFee together, and we had tons of kids,
and so often, especially with the very littlest one, we
(24:47):
would just be like, stand on the X now, look
at that big black X on the on the wall,
and turn your head when I say so when I clap,
turn your head and say I don't want to go,
and he would we would clap, turn his head, he'd
say I don't want to go, and I would say no, no, no,
sing it like me, I don't want to go, I
want to go. No, and then he would just sort
(25:08):
of repeat. I would be like, you have to sing
it like to Parker sing it, and so then he'd
kind of just imitate my inflections. That was one way
we worked with him, so that it was just a song.
It wasn't like he actually you can't say to a
five year old I wanted to get in touch with
away and with you. I'm like, but the other thing
you can do with five year olds is that they
(25:31):
will forget that the camera's on them sort of. So
we ran all the kindergarten stuff as if it were
a kindergarten. I mean, you see them singing those songs
with me, or painting or you're not going to say, Okay,
we're going to pretend to paint, or we're going to
like pretend to write x's on a piece of paper.
We're just going to do it. And we choreographed the camera.
I would sort of see where the camera was going,
(25:53):
almost like a documentary, and then I would just like
scoot over to wherever the camera was and begin the
scene with whoever I needed to be talking to in
that scene. And then the other funny thing about kids
and the like short schedule is there were quite a
few times where I did scenes with our first ad
or our gaffer who would read off camera for me
(26:15):
because the little boy had to go. And I'd be like,
this is really weird, but huh, you know, like the
way you can trip yourself out as an actor kind
of and you can be like, oh, there's helicopters going
over all the time, we have to keep stopping the middle.
I'm really frustrated, and then all of a sudden, the
frustration just goes back into the scene. So this one,
(26:35):
I was like, oh, this is like a hairy fifty
year old guy with like a scrubby you know, beard,
you know, no, no, our first ad our, first d
And he's lying on the ground slating also, and I'd
be like, oh, but I'm okay. So I'm basically talking
to this child as if he's a man. You know,
you just figure out the way to throw it back
in because what else are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I'd love it if on my next film you would
come and do that ex acting with me. Would you
be there for me? It would be my mirror Rostova,
you know, like off the sack okay, and turned to me,
I said, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Want to go to prison. I don't want to go
to prison for TAXIV. I don't want to go to
prison for taxi vasion. You know we could do that.
You'd be my acting cart.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
The now.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
What about Sarah? How many films had she made before
she made this film.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I loved working with Sarah and it was a totally
different kind of experience than I had ever had before,
and in some ways I like to think it's it
was a very feminine set. Right, Sarah wrote and directed it,
our financiers were women, our producers were women. It's all
about a woman. But I'd worked with a lot of
(27:53):
other women and had very different kinds directly, I have.
I've worked with many. I mean even on The Deuce
last season, seven out of eight directors were women.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
You know, is there a difference, Well.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
There is a difference, Yeah, there is, but that's not
necessarily what made I think my collaboration with Sarah and
are set on the kindergarten teacher. So I don't know, unusual. Yeah, feminine,
but I don't even totally know what that means. Even
when I watched the movie, I'm like, this is feminine,
(28:26):
Like what does that mean and why? And my husband
after he saw it last night, he was like, I
wish someone would send this to Senator Flake. But I
don't really know totally why. Right, it's not political movie,
but it's it's like somehow it's really kind of straight,
(28:49):
purely feminine thing. You know, it makes me think of
the piano, not this movie. I would never compare it
to that, But the experience I had when I saw
the Piano and I was like sixteen or something and
I had never seen anything like it, I was like, what, Like,
I guess I think in some ways, girls women my age,
(29:13):
we get so used to having to relate to a
male character or even let's just say like a sort
of masculine point of view on something. We're like, yeah, yeah,
that's not exactly my experience, but I could twist it
around and make it relatable to me, and that muscle
is very exercise. I think in most women we're like, yeah, yeah,
get I know it's not exactly my way through the world,
but I could. I could just twist a little and
(29:37):
it's cool. I get it, and thank God, because otherwise
we'd have very little to relate to. But then, like
when I saw the Piano, I was like, WHOA. I
also relaxed. I don't have to twist anything, and I
felt that way when I read Sarah's script, I just
like went straight.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
In and when I saw this last night, but I
loved it. It's not a bad I don't give it away,
but the dynamic of the home is not all bad.
But there's things that maybe in my mind you know,
are missing as soon as you want, yeah, gone and
connections and feelings exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
It's a much easier movie if her home life is
like if everything's just awful instead.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
See I'm not going to.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Give away the scene on the phone and your husband's like,
he's ready to, you know, do a little dance with you,
and then the phone rings. Oh my god, yeah, oh
my god.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Crazy. Yeah, really upsetting. See yeah, so fucked up.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Of the really fucked up scenes in this movie. That's incredible,
it's true.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
One more thing before we take some questions, do we
have the MIC's poised for the questions we do? Okay,
one last question I have for you, which is, so
you're doing the deuce you're on HBO.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
How did that happen? Meaning? How did they wheel you in?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean, I'm not just saying this for your benefit.
You're one of the most admired movie actresses in the business.
Everybody says this, everybody. You're you're you're gorgeous, and you're talented,
and you're all these things.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
So when you go to do the TV thing, how
did they hook you? Well?
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Huh, I just it's so funny though, because like in
the first three episodes, which was all I read of
The Deuce, Candy didn't really have all that much to do,
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
That's why you took the job.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
No, but it's weird because I was just talking with
Peter about this when we were walking on the beach
here today. I was like, yeah, when I first there,
wasn't she turned so amazing. I mean, I love playing Candy,
I really do. But I just had like a feeling.
I don't know. I was It was David Simon and
George Pelicanos. I mean, they've made some pretty damn good
(31:42):
TV and I had done The Honorable Woman with Hugo,
who I told you I loved so much. So it
wasn't my first time in TV. I wasn't like snobby
about TV. I wanted it, you know. I wanted a
good job, you know that that I could count on
but also stay home, yes, and to be But also
I was like, I don't know, I just had a
good feeling. I was like, I just want to play
(32:03):
this woman. I want to I want to try it.
I want to see I want to see if I
can do this. It was so far outside of my
experience to play a sex worker in nineteen seventy one.
I just like liked her. I just had a I
just had like this feeling about it.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
You signed for three seasons, three seas, had a long contract.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
No, that's cool, and I guess I will. And you know,
there was this whole thing where I was like, guys,
I've only read three. There's going to be twenty four.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
How do I know?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
I mean, I think you guys are all right, but
what if this becomes something? I mean I never had
signed on something like that before. Well that's true, but again,
like I said, I don't trust that. Well, so I
asked them if I could be a producer. And the
thing is is when And everyone said to me, you
are never going to get that on a big HBO show.
(32:58):
You've never produced television before. You didn't develop it, like
good luck, Maggie. But then they were like, okay, let's
be partners. Good for you, And I was like, oh, wow,
for you?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Do we have a who do we have over here?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Sir? How did you prepare for your role as a teacher?
Did you interview teachers? Did you shadow teachers?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well? I yeah, I felt in this movie where this
woman ends up doing a lot of really problematic things.
The movie only really works if you are on her
side for a really, really long time. You're on her side,
even when she's crossing lines. You would never imagine you
would be on anyone side while they were crossing. And so,
(33:45):
you know, it was important to me that she'd be
a great teacher, like a really extraordinary teacher. So, yeah,
my daughter was. I had one older daughter that I
had a daughter who was in preschool, and I asked
her preschool teacher, do you know, like a great kinder
garden teacher who's not at this school because I didn't
really want to mix it with my kids' school. And
she recommended this woman on the Upper West Side. And
(34:06):
I went up there all the time, sat in our classroom.
I got so much from her. She had dinner with
Sarah and I once and gave us like some more tips.
But I yeah, shadowed her. I sat there for hours.
I learned a ton from her.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
She was great.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Somebody up there in the back.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
We saw your film last night, and your performance was stunning,
and I did want to thank you for that. I'm
wondering you picked such unconventional roles I can help. But
wonder if the role that you felt you executed the best,
was it the same role that your critics thought you
executed the best? You know from inside out? Does you
(34:46):
know do those two things match up for you to.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
You and your critics think the same.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Well, one thing I think is interesting you say that
they're unconventional roles. But I just when you said that word,
I thought, Actually, the thing I love about the few
roles that I've done that I feel the most proud
of that I think I executed the best. As you
put it, I think are actually sort of the most
(35:16):
human people, so maybe the most conventional in terms of
being like we actually are. And I know the woman
in the movie does things that many of us would
never ever do, but in so many other ways she's
like I relate to her so much, you know, she
totally could be a friend of mine. And even the
(35:37):
ways she's confused, or the fact that she's confused, I understand,
I have compassion for I don't know in terms of
I don't know about whether I guess I would say
this recently, I would say since the honorable woman, I
think I've had this feeling where I'm most proud of
(35:58):
the last thing I've done, which I feel really grateful for.
Like I feel like, Okay, I'm making the choices that
are right for me right now because I'm I feel
like I keep I don't know, learning about what I'm doing.
(36:18):
As time goes on. I'm sure I'll take a dip
and take a wrong route for a while, But at
the moment, it's been like I feel, yeah, the most
proud of the of the most recent work.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And an actor won't say to me, I was this
very funny guy, older god when he was very good.
He said, remember one thing about reviews. He said, when
they say you're bad, you're never as bad as they
say you are. I mean, if it's not great, you're
never as bad. And when they say you're really good,
you're great. You're always even.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Better than they said. People they're even better than that.
They never get it right. They don't know how.
Speaker 5 (36:53):
I know.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
That's so funny that like I got to like take
that little piece of that Wikipedia thing and like put
it up somewhere. This is so mean. With the Daily News,
the Daily Movie, they hated Maylena were right.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
There here, sir, who's straining out of your chair the
restroom is down to the right, sir, How do you
define feminine and masculine?
Speaker 5 (37:17):
No?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
See, I can't, That's what I'm saying. I don't want
to be reductive about it, and I can't define feminine
and masculine. I'm just trying to say there's like something
and it doesn't okay. I mean, I don't want to
get like super There's just things that are on my
mind right now, Like what does it mean to make
a feminine movie? I don't know the answer to that.
I just know that if you're living in a masculine
(37:38):
world fundamentally, which I'd say, it's pretty clear we are
even a misogynistic world, right. It's it doesn't just because
you're a woman who directs a movie, or just because
you're a woman who writes a movie, doesn't mean it's feminine.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
You have to twist yourself and fit yourself all your life.
Like Virginia Wolf in Room of One Zone has this
whole thing about how like even even Charlotte Bronte, she
said she's not really making purely feminine work because she's
like hiding her paper under her sewing or whatever. And
so that's what I mean when I say I saw
(38:16):
the piano and it had some like like an effect
on me. When I was sixteen, there I did this
interview with Trevor Noah.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
It was about the Deuce. Actually it wasn't about the
kindergarten Teacher, but he'd seen the preview for the kindergarten
Teacher and he was like, I saw the preview. He said,
is it a thriller or is it like an intimate
movie about a woman's mind? Or is it like a
horror movie? And I loved that, and I keep coming
back to it because I think it's not any of those.
(38:46):
It's new, and I think it might be new because
it's feminine. It doesn't tick the boxes we're used to.
But again, I don't know. I'm a little confus about this.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
We have just time for a couple more quick ones.
The lady right there on the able do two more,
two more quick ones.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
I have a very quick question. If you weren't an actor,
what would you do or what would you want to do?
Oh man, I'm really I'm not good at very many
other things. I mean, I'm like an okay cook. I
have a friend who's a professor, which i'd love to think, like,
maybe I could be an English teacher or something, but
I wouldn't be any good at it. I mean, were
you good at other things?
Speaker 5 (39:34):
So good?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
You never I'm good at it. I'm so much better
to believe I'm so good and I'm not with you
that bad at any of it. It's just you never
read any thoughts about.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Maybe professional ice skating.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yes, okay, considering what you've said about literature and being
an English major, and you're probably a great reader.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
If you good option a book and do your movie
but not be in it, what would you do?
Speaker 4 (40:06):
Well?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
I did actually just option a book and I'm not
going to be in it. I'm adapting it and I'm
going to direct it. And it's called The Lost Daughter
by Elena Ferrante.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
All Right, so my last question is a two parter
because we're going to be out of time.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
My last question is a quick two parter. Now, I
had a very fleeting role in Looming Tower with your husband.
Got to work with your husband for the first time,
Peter Sarsguard. And my first question, which is the silly question,
is your husband really as sweet as he seems?
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yeah, I've ever met in my life he's a damn
good husband. I'm thrilled with him.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
And what's that like for you?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Being two people who are working all the time, very
successful movie actors. That's is it wonderful to be with
somebody who understands what you're going through? I'm married you,
it's not in the business.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
And sometimes yes, Like sometimes I'll be like, when are
you coming home? I don't understand when are you coming?
Like we have planned such and such, and he's like, Maggie,
you know, I don't know the answer to yeah, you know,
I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
My wife is like I watched Sometimes it's like, Alec,
why are you so dramatic?
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Duh?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Anyway, now you're telling all Everyboddy.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
And Now. An update after a newspaper story appeared about
this conversation, Jillen Hall's Wikipedia page has been revised. Maggie
Jillen Hall's new movie The Kindergarten Teacher comes out.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
On Netflix October twelfth. I'm like Baldwin, here's the thing.
Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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