Maggie Gyllenhaal was at a party when she had a spark of a brilliant idea for her next story.
Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!”
Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
“I saw this tattoo of the Bride of Frankenstein at a party and I thought, “Something about this character has captured our culture,’” says Academy Award nominee Gyllenhaal. “And I then went back and watched the movie [“Bride of Frankenstein” (1935)] for the first time, because I had never seen it, and I found it really interesting that she’s not really in it. I will say Elsa Lanchester makes a real impact. I mean, she’s in it for three minutes, but she has somehow taken the culture by storm. But to be honest, she doesn’t talk. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t get an opportunity to express herself. And I thought it was an interesting puzzle. This guy [Frankenstein] understandably is so lonely looking for a mate. But then, just anyone will do, and bringing someone back who doesn’t have any agency herself. So, what happens if you take that same format, that same story, but you give her a huge amount of agency, and give her a huge amount of need, and intelligence, and soulfulness, and vulnerability, and power? Then what happens? That seemed like a puzzle worth getting into.”
Jessie Buckley, who plays the film’s titular character, describes “The Bride!” as “intense. It’s a wild abandoned life force. It’s passion on the brink. It’s a revolution. It’s a new language!” says Buckley, who, this year, achieved her second Academy Award nomination, for her performance in “Hamnet.” “It’s giving voice to The Bride who has never been given a voice before. She’s not satisfied to just be reinvigorated as mate. She wants autonomy of the self. And goes on a journey to discover herself in this world so she can be fully in a relationship with Frank. She wants the full story. She can’t be in a relationship that’s half-full. She wants the whole truth, because I think once she’s reborn, she demands absolute life, and absolute love. And it isn’t perfect. It’s a risk, y’know to live and love like that! Our potential to do all sorts of things is huge, and the bride and frank do some fucked up things. But it isn’t without consequence.”
Jessie Buckley as The Bride, and director Maggie Gyllenhaal on the set of “The Bride!”
Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
Gyllenhaal is excited for movie audiences to see her latest film in cinemas, including on IMAX. “Instead of having it be only this big world-building set piece, or this big action sequence, we instead decided to grow where it made sense emotionally,” says Gyllenhaal in a new IMAX featurette for the film. “We built the expanding of the frame to coalesce with emotional shifts and changes. You feel it, like in your chest. It’s got the roller coaster aspect that I think IMAX offers. But then it has this other aspect of cracking open your heart… It’s trippy.”
“I can’t wait to see that,” says Academy Award winner Christian Bale, who plays Frankenstein, in the same featurette.
Experience a bold, iconoclastic take on one of the world’s most compelling stories when “The Bride!” opens only in cinemas March 4. #TheBrideMovie
