Maggie Gyllenhaal Biography (2)
For her starring role opposite James Spader in Secretary, directed by Steven Shainberg she received rave reviews plus a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, a National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance, an IFP/Gotham Breakthrough Performance Award, a Best Actress Award from the Boston Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics' Award for Most Promising Performeras well as a Best Actress Award nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. She also appeared in Spike Jonze's Adaptation with Nicolas Cage and George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Last year, Gyllenhaal was seen in Mike Newell's Mona Lisa Smile, with Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst and John Sayles' Casa De Los Babys with Darryl Hannah and Lily Taylor.
Following Criminal, Gyllenhaal starred with Ellen Barkin, Glenn Close, Patti LuPone and Oliver Platt in the Sidney Lumet-directed HBO movie Strip Search. Gyllenhaal currently stars in Tony Kushner's Homebody Kabul at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and previously at the Mark Taper Forum theatre in Los Angeles. She recently completed production on Danny Leiner's The Great New Wonderful and Don Roos' Happy Endings.
Among her recent motion picture credits are Penny Marshall's Riding In Cars With Boys with Drew Barrymore, and 40 Days and 40 Nights with Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon, directed by Emmy-nominated Michael Lehmann.
An accomplished stage actress, Gyllenhaal starred as Alice in Patrick Mauber's award-winning Closer at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles for director Robert Egan, and previously at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. She has also appeared in Anthony and Cleopatra at the Vanborough Theatre in London.
Gyllenhaal made her feature film debut in 1992, alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in Waterland. This was followed by a memorable performance as Raven, the Satan-worshipping make-up artist in John Waters' quirky Hollywood satire, Cecil B. Demented, which led her to a co-starring role in Donnie Darko, a fantasy-thriller about disturbed adolescence.
Gyllenhaal is a 1999 graduate of Columbia University where she studied Literature and Eastern Religion.
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