Los Angeles, February 26 – Actress and director Maggie Gyllenhaal has spoken about her inspiration for her upcoming film, “The Bride!”
The actress was inspired to direct after seeing a tattoo at a party, according to ‘Female First UK’.
The 48-year-old actress and filmmaker has directed the new Gothic romance film and explained how it came about after she saw a man with a tattoo of the Bride of Frankenstein on his arm and decided to watch the original 1935 picture, which starred Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester.
Maggie, who made her directorial debut with ‘The Lost Daughter’, told SFX magazine, “I was at a party, and I saw a man with a tattoo on his whole forearm of the Bride of Frankenstein. And I was like… huh! It just hooked me. I saw this tattoo, and I was like, ‘Have I ever seen that movie? I know the image’. I was doing press in LA, and I went back to my hotel room and looked her up online. Then I watched the movie”.
According to ‘Female First UK’, Maggie felt that the fact that she hadn't seen Bride of Frankenstein gave her a fresh perspective as she embarked on making the movie.
The actress said, “Throughout this process, the feeling of coming to something new and fresh has been a part of my experience. I came to her very open and curious, without much history attached, aside from the general way that she exists in our cultural mythology”.
The actress was particularly struck by the fact that Lanchester's Bride has only minimal screen time in the film.
She explained, “Well, Elsa Lanchester doesn't speak, which I found really interesting, especially when she's the titular character. You're kind of expecting that the movie is going to be about her, and it just isn't. But then when she does come on screen, she's undeniable. She has very few actual minutes of screen time as the Bride, and yet somehow she makes this lasting impact. I think it has to do with her so clearly being disobedient and not willing to fit in a box. Like, she's just saying 'No' from the moment she wakes up to this pretty f* situation that she finds herself in”.
Maggie shared that she and lead star Jessie Buckley didn't set out to imitate Lanchester's look, but it ended up that way.
The actress said, “Jessie and I were involved together for a long time. Before the Actors' Strike (in the summer of 2023), we were working, thinking, sharing images and poems and songs. Then we have this big break where we can't work, and we're just gathering information alone”.
"We really felt no responsibility to imitate the original Bride of Frankenstein. "We didn't think of it that way at all. But by the time we got the look finished, she does have that little bit of a wink to the Bride's hair. We loved the idea that electricity dyed all of her hair white: the hair on her head, her lashes, her brows”, she added.
