Are Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal your favorite Hollywood siblings? If so bad news: it doesn’t seem like they’ll be acting together any time soon. Early in their careers they did play brother and sister onscreen (Donnie Darko, 2001) but they have no plans to do so again. Jake spoke about Maggie frequently during his interview at the New Yorker Festival on Saturday which I had the pleasure of attending but he crushed fan hopes when answering a question about the likelihood of them working together.
“It would just take something that meant so much to me that regardless of the size of the role, I’d need her to be a part of it or vice versa. Or it would be something that was just so awesome that we couldn’t not do it. We don’t go around like ‘let’s look for something to work together again’ I’m busy wanting to spend time with my niece, her daughter, and spend time as brother and sister.”
He then got caught up with a story, and like many of his stories, it went to weird awkward circular places. “She was nominated for an Academy Award last year and I was shooting and I was like ‘I will do anything to be there because if my sister were to win an Academy Award and I wasn’t there I don’t what I would do. If I missed out on that moment that would have been awful. So I got no sleep and was a cranky person BUT I WAS THERE. And that’s what matters. And that was a weird story. Anyway … I love her a lot!”
Ha! Oh Jake, everyone knew Mo’Nique was going to win the Oscar for Precious. You could have stayed on set! My point is this: Jake is hilarious in person and he and Maggie are obviously close. That’s good. Hollywood’s star siblings are rarely this close: Shirley Maclaine and Warren Beatty never acted like best buddies. Olivia deHavilland and Joan Fontaine, both in their 90s now, STILL aren’t speaking. Julia and Eric Roberts weren’t exactly tight. Elle and Dakota Fanning? We’ll see!
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