Maggie Gyllenhaal

And something about that time made me do it, made me say, okay, I am terrified.

I was terrified.

And I'm going to do it anyway.

He sort of took me aside after the first read-through, and he said, Come here.

Um, just one thing.

She's feral.

Well, I mean, acting in it is in a big, huge budget movie is very different than directing one.

What I did think was it's hard to be free.

in a movie of that size because there are so many other aspects as an actor, so many other aspects that can sometimes feel like they take precedent.

VFX, the massive day, the 400 extras, whatever it is.

And

Heath Ledger really, really managed to find that humanity and freedom inside of that really big movie.

And I will say that that was one of the most important things to me on The Bride was to create real freedom for all of the artists who were working on it, not just my actors.

That was a major priority for me.

I would say as an actress, to be honest, it is way more rare to find an environment, a situation where you feel seen, respected, and loved than one where you don't.

Yeah, that's my experience.

But I had to learn how to do it without it.

And I see so many actors walk on set with that mindset.

I do.

I feel like many actors walk on set like, okay, I'm probably going to get nothing here.