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‘The Lost Daughter’ Dares To Show the Ugly Side of Motherhood
Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s feature directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, is already receiving awards buzz. But as she explained during a recent appearance on The View, making the Netflix film wasn’t always easy — especially when she had the “strange” experience of directing her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, in a sex scene with another actress.
Based on Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman as Leda, a college professor who becomes fixated on a woman (Dakota Johnson) and her young daughter while vacationing in Greece. Along the way, Leda’s obsession with this other woman forces her to remember her own memories of early motherhood — including her steamy encounter with a fellow professor (played by Sarsgaard) as a young woman (played by Jessie Buckley).
“My husband is the object of desire in the movie,” Gyllenhaal explained. “And he has, I think, a really sexy couple of scenes with a brilliant, young, beautiful, incredibly compelling actress.”
Host Sara Haines cut in, joking, “So tell us why it upset you.”
“I did think at first, ‘Maybe it’s not a great idea,’ and then I was like, ‘I’ve been with my husband for a long time,” Gyllenhaal said. “We’ve been through so much. I know my husband loves me. Who could do this better than him? Really, nobody.”
The actress and director went on to call sexual scenes a “strange” and “weird” part of working in Hollywood. “The thing that makes the scene hot, I think, is that he is hot for her mind — her mind,” she added. “What is sexier than that? He’s like, ‘I am into your mind.’ … Really, that kind of sexy is irresistible.”
The Lost Daughter is in select theaters December 17 and available to stream on Netflix starting December 31.