Why did you do SherryBaby?
It was an exceptional script. It was very real in the way that real human beings do things you wouldn’t imagine. I made it quite a long time ago and was drawn to the fact I didn’t know how I was going to do it, it seemed like a challenge. I’m so glad I did it, though, as it turned out to be about what I hope all my movies are about: someone whom it would be easy to judge but who the audience is invited to love despite how messed up she is.

Is it tedious to promote something you did so long ago?
I know getting involved in a teeny independent movie about someone like Sherry is going to take up many years of my life. It’s not like doing a move like World Trade Centre. I had to promote that film but with Sherry Baby I had to help get it sold, distributed and advertised. A lot is on my shoulders and I’m really the only one who can go out and sell it. I have to be part of that. It’s not like it’s come as a surprise.

You’ve said you had a stormy relationship with the director, why was that?
We shot the movie in five weeks which is a very short time and I was in every moment of every scene so I was working very hard. I felt I was Sherry at the time, I didn’t mean to but I started to. I worked long hours, fell asleep with my clothes on, woke up and went to work again. I was very stubborn and it was hard to have a civilised conversation with me because I was being Sherry. We also had a fundamental disagreement about who she was, I wouldn’t back down on my opinion. Sometimes an actress knows more about the character she’s playing than anyone else can know. I felt the only way that the movie would work would be if Sherry was someone who felt she was getting out of jail and going to be a great mother, which makes the obstacles she has to overcome all the more heartbreaking. Looking back though I must have been a fucking handful.

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The co-founder of Agent Provocateur, Serena Rees, Britain’s most famous lingerie company talks the The Telegraph about there new ad campaign:

There’s never been a hint of “Hello Boys” in the marketing, which the latest campaign, featuring the quirkily alluring Maggie Gyllenhaal, star of Secretary, demonstrates beautifully. The star, trussed up in suspenders and basques plays a kind of lingerie tutor in the ads.

“Maggie is not an obvious sex symbol and she has a particular quality that lends itself to the ‘mistress’ role,” says Rees. “She is a strong, intelligent and beautiful woman. She is confident and in charge of her own sexuality, and this makes her appealing to both men and women.”

Rees, though tall and slender, likes to promote models of all shapes and sizes, but says that advertising watchdogs are not always helpful. “We like to show curvy bodies. Annoyingly, we are often censored when we try to advertise our lingerie on fuller-figured girls.”

Earlier this year, a poster featuring a well-endowed model that was destined for a London Underground station had to be airbrushed before it was deemed acceptable.

“We had to reduce a woman’s bust size significantly. It is a pity. The fashion industry is often met with criticism for promoting size-zero models, yet when we try to promote our products on buxom beauties we are told to alter their body shapes to make them less provocative… It’s a no-win situation.”

You can read the full article at The Telegraph

Elle UK reports that hot on the heels of Kate Moss’ starring role in last year’s sensational Agent Provocateur campaign (yes the one of Kate in four steamy Mike Figgis films which crashed the AP website!) Today Maggie Gyllenhaal is revealed as the new star of Agent Provocateur’s ‘The Adventures of Miss A.P’ - the lingerie label’s sexy new ad campaign. It’s a series of four stories that will be released throughout the coming year, and each episode will star a different Miss A.P. At the end of the year all four will be available to collect in a glossy box set. First up is Maggie, and her ‘book’ (as A.P explained to us) is entitled ‘Lessons in Lingerie’. It’s a cheeky-sexy collection of images of Maggie’s adventures in Agent Provocateur ’s latest designs, shot by photographer Alice Hawkins. You’ll see the new images nationwide from today or you can collect them for free from A.P stores or at www.agentprovocateur.com now.

Look at the winsome lady to the right. It’s the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jake’s big sister, and doesn’t she look pretty? All knowing smile and dancing eyes, she’s like that sixth-former you used to see parading around school like she owned the place, trailed by an army of adoring minions. But what’s Maggie, a bluestocking type, doing modelling satin basques? If you asked the average bloke in the street who they would want to see in their undies, she wouldn’t be top of the list. She’s comely but somewhat unconventional, and even Agent Provocateur – for which she is appearing in a new book of erotic fiction – admits she isn’t obvious man-magnet material. “We’ve always been mindful to create a brand that appeals to both men and women,” says Serena Rees, the co-founder of Agent Provocateur. And so they have. These pictures acknowledge the fact that girls fancy girls.

Oh, ladies – but we do, don’t we? We don’t talk about it much – even to our closest friends. But most of us, and I speak here of girls who generally like boys more, have, at some point, harboured a furtive crush on another woman. Read the rest of this entry »

British Vouge reports that Maggie Gyllenhaal will step into Kate Moss’ shoes to star in Agent Provocateur’s upcoming online campaign. Last year saw Moss teasingly lead viewers through an Alice in Wonderland-style fantasy world in a series of videos that crashed the brand’s website, such was demand - and, if Gyllenhaal’s performances in explicit films Secretary and SherryBaby are anything to go by, the new campaign will prove equally popular. Moss’ contract with Agent Provocateur expires in August and the online campaign starring Gyllenhaal, which was shot by Alice Hawkins, launches on September 1. It will feature three yet-to-be-named stars in subsequent “episodes”.