Maggie Gyllenhaal is following in the footsteps of her character on “The Deuce” and stepping behind the camera. The Oscar-nominated actress is set to make her directorial debut with “The Lost Daughter,” an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel of the same name. She’ll also write and produce the pic. Deadline broke the news.
The book follows Leda, a woman who is overcome with memories of the past while on holiday at the sea. She is confronted by the “difficult and unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. What begins as an apparently serene tale of a woman’s pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes a ferocious psychological thriller about a confrontation with an unsettled past,” the source summarizes.
Gyllenhaal is teaming up with Pie Films for the project. The “Secretary” actress can currently be seen on “The Deuce,” HBO’s period drama about the sex trade industry in New York City. She plays a sex worker who discovers she has an aptitude for directing and steps behind the camera to shoot porn. Gyllenhaal’s latest film, Sara Colangelo’s “The Kindergarten Teacher,” hits theaters and Netflix October 12. The Sundance pic follows a teacher who becomes fixated on her five-year-old student.
In 2010 Gyllenhaal received an Oscar nod for “Crazy Heart.” She won a Golden Globe and snagged an Emmy nomination for BBC/Sundance TV miniseries “The Honourable Woman.”
HBO has an adaptation of Ferrante’s international bestseller “My Brilliant Friend” on the way. Slated to premiere November 18, the eight-episode series chronicles the friendship of Elena Greco and Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo and is set in Italy.
