Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary) steps into the role of Bruce Wayne's ex Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight, the second Batman movie from writer/director Christopher Nolan. Rachel was also a central character in the 2005 blockbuster Batman Begins, however she was brought to life onscreen in that film by a different actress. Katie Holmes (aka Mrs Tom Cruise) played the role but did not return for this sequel.
Gyllenhaal wasn't actually looking for work when Nolan approached her about playing Rachel. "I had a three month old and then I wasn't reading scripts at the time," explained Gyllenhaal. "But I was a fan of Chris Nolan's, and I mean, the cast. I think that everyone who's in the movie was already in it. It was Gary Oldman and Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman and Christian [Bale] and Heath [Ledger] and Aaron Eckhart. It was hard not to take that seriously because they're incredible."
"I met Chris and he was lovely and smart and thoughtful. He gave me the script to read and he said to me when he gave it to me, he said, 'She's not quite finished yet, this character.' It was early on and I guess it was a sort of early draft. I read it and I had a lot of ideas, and I guess for me there were two chief worries. One was that I wanted to make sure that I had Katie Holmes' blessing and I didn't want to get involved with it if I didn't. I also wanted to make sure that Chris wanted the character to be smart and feisty and fierce and a real whole thinking woman who cares just as much about making Gotham an honorable and safe place to live as any of these guys did. When I realized that Chris wanted exactly that, then I had to do it."
Taking over a role originally played by another actor is a tricky situation. Gyllenhaal didn't want to copy what Holmes had done and instead just made the character her own. "I'm a fan of hers. I think she's a really lovely actress and I know her a tiny, tiny bit and I loved what she did in the previous movie, but I didn't think that it would help anybody for me to imitate her or even watch it too closely. I think it was better for me to think of her as a whole new woman. At the same time, there are plot things and narrative things that she built that are important for this movie that follows, the movie that we did. Most importantly, I guess it was that she says at the very end of the first movie that she loves Bruce Wayne, but that she can't be with him if he's Batman and that she understands why he has to be Batman, but that she can't be with him that way."
The Dark Knight marks Gyllenhaal's first performance in a comic book-inspired film. Gyllenhaal admits it took a while before it actually sunk in that she was part of this mega-franchise loved by millions and millions of comic book fans. "I didn't really read comic books. I didn't have a problem with them, but I just didn't know about them, really. I just didn't ever read them and then I'm doing the movie and I'm getting super involved in the movie. Different things had happened, like I'd be doing a scene and be super into and I'd be taking it absolutely seriously and then I'd hear myself in the scene saying, 'Believe me, the safest place in Gotham is now Bruce Wayne's penthouse!' I would be like, 'What? I'm in Batman!' It feels so cool and so kind of thrilling," said Gyllenhaal.
"You can hear the music swell and then of course when I did that stunt where I'm hanging off the edge of the building and am about to be thrown to certain death and Batman comes and sweeps you up in his cape, that's how you get the 30 year old women. It's appealing. It's overwhelming, too. So then I kind of got into it. I started to pay attention to the fact that there's these people out there that really care about this and it makes me feel like I hope that we did justice to the world that they imagine. I hope that I did justice to Rachel Dawes, who isn't in the comic books, but to this character who's a huge part of Gotham - at least in this imaginary world. "
And speaking of stunt work, Gyllenhaal's definitely not an expert in that department. Although she was up for the challenge, Gyllenhaal was probably fortunate she didn't have to tackle many stunts in The Dark Knight. "I didn't have much to do, but I liked it. I sort of thought that I would be fine and then right before I did it, I got a little bit scared. And then we did one take and it was just really fun. I really liked it and it was really cool."
The Dark Knight takes place in a fantasy world, yet Gyllenhaal believes every member of the cast approached their roles with realism, truth, and honesty. Asked to describe her time spent with Heath Ledger, whose performance as The Joker is generating Oscar buzz, Gyllenhaal replied, "I really only have that one section with him and I knew, I guess immediately, that he was doing something really unusual and rare and extremely special even for the most talented and experienced actors which is that he sort of found this stride where he was totally free. What's so incredible about that is that when that happens it bleeds over into everyone around you. Although the scene that I did with him was scary and full of tension, it actually was so fun because he'd take anything that I threw at him. He threw all sorts of interesting things at me. And also they shot the scene with one camera circling us and so usually if you're shooting a scene in many angles, once you've established how you're going to move in the scene you have to repeat that in every angle. As a film actor, you have to get used to that and find a way to be free anyway. But when they're shooting in that way, with one camera circling you, you don't have to match anything, not exactly."
