Quotes from Maggie Gyllenhaal

I'm pretty good at indulging myself. I'm about to go travel for a week. I like to get massaged, go into steam rooms. I take care of myself.

I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long.

I don't see that many movies lately that are actually about something, that are trying to challenge something about the way that people interact.

Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it.

So many people are willing to sleepwalk through things and fall into the not human, not interesting choice. To make the really interesting choice, you have to fight.

I think Secretary's funny, it is about sex, and there's a lot of sex in it, sex is the key, but you're talking about a lot of other complicated things.

I am not crazy about my knees.

We were lounging around in this beautiful house in LA, and I'm coming from NY, so sometimes when we weren't working I would just sit on those folding chairs.

Most people are interested in seeing 27-year-old women who are in movies somehow connected to sex. It's interesting to everyone. Especially little movies that are having trouble getting made, there's always sex.

Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.

I was always dressing up as a kid. I had a dress for all the Los Angeles bar and bat mitzvahs that I was going to when I was 13 which I was crazy for. It was green, dark, shimmery. Very 1980s. It was slightly off-the-shoulder, which I thought was very sophisticated.

Motherhood brings you to your knees in a way that doesn't leave room for you to judge others. It makes you see that there's no ideal - a constant struggle, constantly compromising, but ultimate love.

A big part of being an actress specifically is feeling entitled to your artistic opinion, feeling that it means something, and being able to stand by it.

I feel there is no shortage of real interesting women's roles. But I found them and did all of them just now.

I like clothes. And I think it's OK to think about clothes just so long as you also think about other things. I'm not interested in clothes to the point where they'll push other things out of my mind; I just see them as a way of expressing yourself, and a pleasure, really.

I'm not interested in showing the wish of what it looks like to be human. I'm interested in showing what it actually looks like.

I think what happened to me was I was so lucky to have made 'Secretary' so young. It's unusual to be given an opportunity to express yourself as an actress that young and that thoroughly.

A lot of actresses are doing incredible work right now, playing real women, complicated women. I don't feel despairing at all. And I'm more looking with hope for something fascinating.

For a long time, I bought into the idea that if you are a woman who is a storyteller and a lover of movies, then the best way to express that is as an actress. Obviously, there are women my age who are directors who didn't buy into that idea, but I did - and now I've broken that down inside myself.

Therapy was incredibly enlightening. I don't think it's only necessary if you're unwell - it's a useful tool for me to understand my own mind and how it works.

College gave me validation: I gained a lot of confidence, just from once or twice saying something in class and the professor saying, 'Great idea.' That experience has certainly helped me say to a director, 'Actually, I think my idea is at least worth talking about.'

You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.

I think sex is very interesting for most people, but I'm interested in sex as a way of communication, I'm not that interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene.

You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you.