The actress has adapted the novel “The Lost Daughter” by the Neapolitan writer for the big screen. “He agreed to grant the rights as long as I was directing”
VENEZIA “I think I’ve always been a director but I didn’t even admit it to myself.” Maggie Gyllenhaal – an acting career that began directed by her father Stephen and continued with authors such as Spike Jonze, Oliver Stone and Sam Mendes – found strength thanks to Elena Ferrante, whose novel she adapted “The dark daughter”, «The Lost Daughter», in competition in Venice 78. “I had read her Neapolitan stories years ago – she says – while I was reading, I said to myself ‘this woman is so complicated’, only to fully understand what she felt”.
He agreed to grant the rights on one condition. “It had to be me the director: a vote of confidence. He read the script and gave me support, writing very nice notes. Ferrante writes about dangerous and attractive truths of the female experience, truths that I would like to be told more ». She took care of it, with a cast in which she brought together Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris and also our Alba Rohrwacher (“She entered the film like a bolt of lightning”). The protagonist is Leda (Colman today), a university professor of Italian literature in Boston on holiday in Greece, where she finds herself observing on the beach the disturbances of a young mother (Johnson) struggling with her little daughter. Imperfect mother and, it turns out, also, surprisingly, parallel, thanks to flashblack in which Irish actress Jessie Buckley plays her.
For the part of a fascinating teacher who helps to put in crisis the family balance of the young Lena, wanted her husband Peter Sarsgaard. “There was a moment when I thought it wasn’t a great idea to make it the object of desire for a wonderful actress. Then I said to myself: you are so bourgeois. Peter and I have been together since I was 23 and he continues to love me. The part was perfect for him. ‘ That raises. “Nice to see his talent at work.” And the mystery of Elena Ferrante’s identity? «I would be tempted to say I know who he is – admits the new director -, but I only spoke to him through letters that I jealously guard. He wanted Leda not to be crazy, so that we could feel her pain ».
September 3, 2021 (change September 7, 2021 | 12:00)
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