Maggie Gyllenhall’s newest role is director.<\/b>
\nMaggie Gyllenhaal may come from a family of filmmakers, yet she never let herself dream about directing until recently. Things changed very quickly and very profoundly for Gyllenhaal when she found herself writing to Elena Ferrante, asking for permission to adapt her 2008 novel \u201cThe Lost Daughter.\u201d Ferrante said yes, she could have the rights, but there was one condition: Gyllenhaal had to direct it herself or the contract was \u201cnull and void.\u201d \u201cI think I\u2019ve always been a director and I just didn\u2019t feel entitled to admit it to myself,\u201d Gyllenhaal said Friday at the Venice Film Festival before her film makes its world premiere in competition. \u201cI think it\u2019s a better job for me actually.\u201d Ferrante\u2019s novel, which preceded her Neapolitan quartet, follows a middle-aged college professor and mother of two grown daughters on a solo vacation, where she is transfixed by a younger mother and her daughter. Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley play the lead, Leda, at different stages of life. Colman\u2019s Leda is vacationing in Greece when she notices Nina (Dakota Johnson) and her young daughter on the same beach and makes a bizarre decision involving the daughter\u2019s doll. Gyllenhaal said Ferrante\u2019s novels present, \u201cSecret truths about a feminine experience in the world that I really liked having spoken out loud… It seemed like a kind of dangerous, exciting thing to try. That was why I wanted to try to adapt it into a film.\u201d She corresponded with Ferrante who gave notes on the script, which takes many creative liberties with the text, including making Leda British and Nina American, instead of Italian. The Italian author was supportive, wanting Gyllenhaal to make it her own. But Ferrante did say one thing: It was very important that Leda \u201cnot be crazy.\u201d If she was, it would make the story dismissible. \u201cI\u2019m very grateful that she wasn\u2019t depicted as someone with madness,\u201d Colman said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I loved about it.\u201d Colman found the prospect of playing someone who does something unthinkable exciting. \u201cAll people want to be one person, turns out they\u2019re not that person and they\u2019re probably someone else,\u201d Colman said. \u201cIt was intriguing to play a character who does something that I wouldn\u2019t do, but (maybe) I\u2019ve thought about it.\u201d For Johnson, it was the opposite. \u201cOlivia found it fun and I found it really hard,\u201d Johnson laughed. \u201cI at times felt so uncomfortable because (Nina) was so uncomfortable. It was fun sometimes to be so twisted, but other times it really hurt me.\u201d But Johnson did find in Gyllenhaal, \u201cthe kind of relationship, artistic, creative collaboration that is of dreams.\u201d \u201cShe really catches me off guard all the time in a way that makes me really want to evolve as a person and an actress,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I find really rare in making movies. That used to be a more common experience bonding with a director where you felt like you could unzip and be safe.\u201d Gyllenhaal cast her husband Peter Sarsgaard in the film as well, as a brilliant professor who Buckley\u2019s Leda is drawn to. But she said thought twice about it. \u201cTo be completely honest there was a moment where I thought maybe it\u2019s not a great idea to have him play the object of desire for a (beautiful) actress,\u201d Gyllenhaal said. \u201cThen I thought, \u2018You\u2019re so bourgeois.\u2019 Peter and I have been together since I was 23 and I know he loves me. And I thought there isn\u2019t anyone who could play that part like him. And I thought, \u2018Let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d For Sarsgaard, watching Gyllenhaal direct was a profound experience. \u201cIt was such an enormous pleasure to watch my wife really fulfill her talent. For so long people have known what an excellent actress she is, but being around her is truly inspiring,\u201d he said. \u201cShe has a real eye for an unconventional truth.\u201d The 78th Venice International Film Festival runs through Sept.11.<\/p>\n