Maggie Gyllenhaal Says Brother Jake Gyllenhaal Made Her Laugh 'So Hard' She Cried on “The Bride!” Set (Exclusive)

Nigel SmithWed, March 4, 2026 at 3:48 PM UTC

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Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal in 2021Credit: John Lamparski/WireImage -

Maggie Gyllenhaal tells PEOPLE about the experience of working with her brother on her second movie as a director, The Bride!

"Honestly, I wish I could give you drama, but it was just such a pleasure," she says

The Bride!, in theaters March 6, also stars her husband Peter Sarsgaard

Maggie Gyllenhaal was sure to make her second movie as a director, The Bride!, a family affair.

For her audacious follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Lost Daughter, Gyllenhaal, 48, enlisted Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale for a reimagining of The Bride of Frankenstein, with Buckley as the titular bride and Bale as her monstrous suitor.

The movie also reunites her with her husband, Peter Sarsgaard, who starred in her directorial debut. And, in a smaller role as a 1930s matinee idol named Ronnie Reed, Jake Gyllenhaal, 45, is directed by his sister Maggie for the very first time.

Asked about working with her brother, whom she last collaborated with on 2001's Donnie Darko, Maggie tells PEOPLE, "Honestly, I wish I could give you some more drama, but it was just such a pleasure."

Christian Bale as Frank and Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed in The Bride!Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

"I mean, you see in the movie, he's kind of more of a cameo. So when he would come to set dressed in his tuxedo, so funny," she continues. "I mean, there's some Ronnie Reid humor, but just on set, just being with him, he would make me laugh so hard."

She adds, "But watching him on screen too, watching him on the monitors, I would sometimes be laughing so hard I would be crying. It was just such a pleasure working with him."

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Acknowledging that writing and directing the big-budgeted The Bride! was a massive "challenge" to undertake — one that brought her "terror as well as massive excitement, pretty much every day" — Maggie says it felt "amazing" to have her husband and her brother on set.

ake Gyllenhaal and director Maggie Gyllenhaal on the set of The Bride!Credit: Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.

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"I think the movie is a celebration of the parts of all of ourselves that don't fit in the box, no matter what you look like, no matter what you dress like, no matter what music you listen to," Maggie adds. "I think all of us have these parts of ourselves that we might call them monstrous, we might call them punk, we might call them all sorts of things, but that's the part that's being celebrated. That's the part that's being welcomed, even if it's terrifying. And that was because that's what we were making the movie about. That was also the vibe on set."

Jake and Maggie came from a filmmaking family: their father Stephen, 76, has worked as a television and film director since the 1980s, while their mother Naomi, 79, was nominated for an Oscar in 1989 for writing the movie Running on Empty.

The Bride! also stars Penélope Cruz, Julianne Hough, John Magaro and Annette Bening. The movie is in theaters March 6.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”