Maggie Gyllenhaal

Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal, known professionally as Maggie Gyllenhaal, was born on November 16, 1977, in Manhattan, New York City, to screenwriter and director Naomi Achs and film director and poet Stephen Gyllenhaal. She did not learn that her legal first name was Margalit — a Hebrew word meaning "pearl" — until 2013, when she adopted her husband's surname. Her younger brother is actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and she also has a half-brother from her father's second marriage. Her father is of Swedish and English ancestry and was raised in the Swedenborgian religion, while her mother, who grew up in Brooklyn, comes from Ashkenazi Jewish families that emigrated from Russia and Poland. Gyllenhaal has identified as Jewish and has said she grew up mostly Jewish culturally, though she did not attend Hebrew school. Her parents married in 1977 and filed for divorce in October 2008.

Gyllenhaal grew up in Los Angeles and attended Harvard-Westlake prep school, graduating in 1995. She also spent four months at The Mountain School, a semester program for high school juniors in Vermont. After graduating from Harvard-Westlake, she moved to New York to study literature and Eastern religions at Columbia University. She additionally completed a summer term in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Her screen career began at age fifteen with a brief appearance in her father's film Waterland (1992), followed by supporting roles in A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998), both also directed by her father and featuring her brother Jake. She and Jake appeared alongside their mother in two episodes of the Food Network cooking program Molto Mario. After completing her studies, she took supporting roles in Cecil B. Demented (2000) and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), and appeared with her brother in the cult thriller Donnie Darko (2001).

Her theatrical career began in May 2000 with a production of Patrick Marber's Closer at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, for which she received favorable notices. She subsequently appeared in several other stage productions, including The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Butterfly Project, and No Exit. In 2014, she made her Broadway debut in a revival of The Real Thing, bringing her total stage productions since 2000 to five.

Her film breakthrough came with the lead role in Secretary (2002), a performance that earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination, a National Board of Review Best Breakthrough Performance award, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. That same year she appeared in Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind — alongside Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts — and the comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights. In 2003 she co-starred with Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile, and in 2004 she starred in the HBO film Strip Search. Her leading role in Sherrybaby (2006) earned her a second Golden Globe nomination, and she reached wider commercial audiences that year in World Trade Center. She played Rachel Dawes in the superhero film The Dark Knight (2008), and her performance as a single mother in Crazy Heart (2009) brought her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Subsequent film credits include Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010), Hysteria (2011), Won't Back Down (2012), White House Down (2013), Frank (2014), and The Kindergarten Teacher (2018). On television, she starred in the BBC political-thriller miniseries The Honourable Woman (2014), a role that won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. She later produced and starred in the HBO period drama series The Deuce, which ran from 2017 to 2019.

Gyllenhaal expanded her work behind the camera with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter (2021), which marked her debut as both a writer and director. The film earned her the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award and has received nominations for two Academy Awards and two British Academy Film Awards across her career.