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