Maggie Gyllenhaal Video Interview On ‘Away We Go’

John and Maya were doing kind of bits and comedy all the way through, when we were shooting, when we weren't. I was laughing kind of all the time. I loved it. I worked for like four days on it, so there were so many moments that we kind of funny and great about it because it was all packed into such a tiny period of time. I think, the first day I worked I had not worked in a long time; I had just been mothering. And I was actually kinda dying to go to work. I really missed it. And I went to work and all of a sudden I was shooting that very first scene where I'm nursing my child, an 11-month-old. And, of course, in a movie when you're acting with an 11-month-old, they have to get twins. So I was acting with these two 11-month-old twins who were so unhappy to be in a movie. So I kind of came to work thinking, 'Okay, I'm an actress again! I'm gonna have this kind of moment to myself,' but I spent the whole day mothering these two babies and that was kind of funny for me, anyway.

Sam called me. I knew Sam well. He's a friend of mine. He worked with both my husband and my brother and just said 'Will you come and do this little part in my movie?' And I read it and I just -- ya know, for me I just know sometimes. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do but I know there's something for me here. And I had that feeling when I read the script and I just thought 'I wanna do this. I have some feeling about how I want to do this.'

My parents were pretty bohemian, but not quite in that way. I would say when I was pregnant, my fantasy of being a mother was that everything would be absolutely organic, that I would have cloth diapers and hand wash them myself, and I would sort of talk to my daughter about her feelings -- well, which I do do that; I do talk to her about her feelings. But, you know, all these kind of fantasies that you have of what it will be like were kind of more in the [the character] LN direction. And I still do kind of lean in that direction, but, I mean she is as far on that spectrum as you can possibly be. I definitely have a stroller. I live in New York. You know, she's nursing her 4-year-old, you know, and I'm not that far over. But I thought it was funny and I think I knew how to send it up because I do know a little bit about parenting in that way, and I certainly, living in Park Slope [Brooklyn], I do run into people who are further, even, over in that way than I am.

It's funny, everybody asks me that. I think that it really depends on the project. Making independent movies, especially now, when no one
is making independent movies or buying independent movies, is very hard. When I first started making movies it was a lot easier. I feel like, when "Secretary" came out, whenever that was -- 2001 or 2002? -- you could, if you had a good script and a couple of good actors you could get a couple million dollars, make your movie, and that is not true anymore. So to make an independent movie at this point is really hard work. To pull it through: getting its money, getting it made, getting it bought, then putting it out -- you run into so many road blocks that with a studio movie you just don't run into. At the same time, there's this amazing pleasure about pulling something that's hard, that might be more risky or more unconventional, of getting it into theaters and getting people to see it -- something that a studio might not otherwise have made. But don't get me wrong, I really like studio movies too. [Laughs.] It's nice to have someone behind you and supporting you and pushing you. And to know that the work that you're doing is going to be seen by many many people. I want people to see my movies. I make them so people will see them. So I actually really like both, yeah.