Maggie Gyllenhaal is revealing how she really felt about her brother Jake Gyllenhaal’s early career success.
“In general, I am very interested in envy,” Maggie, 48, said during a Saturday, February 28, interview with The New York Times, when asked about a “sibling rivalry” between her and Jake, 45. “I think there’s a reason it’s a seven deadly sin. I’m interested in it in terms of watching other people’s movies come out. Admiration versus envy. What creates it? I think it’s usually feeling starving, like you don’t have enough.”
She continued, “I know Emerald Fennell, whose movie Wuthering Heights is about to come out, a little. I reached out to her, and I said: ‘How are you doing? How are you with all of this?’ And just the act of reaching out to her — and she’s great — frees the competition up and you realize: No, no. We’re actually 100 percent on the same team. There absolutely is enough to go around. But I don’t think I knew that at first, when I was young and Jake was a movie star right away. I don’t think I was in touch with the envy, but it was there.”
Jake made his acting debut in 1991’s City Slickers, while Maggie first acted in Waterland — a film that came out one year later and was directed by their dad, Stephen Gyllenhaal.
Now, Maggie is set to release The Bride! – a retelling of the “Bride of Frankenstein” story — on Friday, March 6, which features Jake in a supporting role. This film marks the first time the pair have worked together since 2001’s Donnie Darko, where Maggie and Jake played onscreen siblings.
“I waited until I was absolutely sure that asking him to do this part was the right thing to do,” she recalled, referring to Jake. “I remember asking him and tearing up alone in this hotel room I was in, because it meant so much to me. It meant so much for me to interact with him.”
Maggie went on to explain that she “had to be separate” from her family and Jake “in the past.”
“Like, cool, I’ve got my own thing going. We both started so young. I think it was just a really honest, vulnerable, what’s underneath rage, reaching out,” she explained. “Just basically saying, I want to interact, and I know that this is a place where we can do it. I’m not asking him to do something that he can’t do. I’m making an offer, which is a generous thing to do.”
When asked if it was an “invitation,” Maggie replied, “Yeah, and with love.” She added that collaborating with Jake now has only strengthened their sibling relationship.
“We’ve never been estranged, but we’ve never been as close as we are now,” she told the outlet. “We’re finally, maybe in the last five years, more and more and more, even each day, really interacting, which is hard for people to do.”
The Bride hits theatres on Friday, March 6.
