Peter Sarsgaard: 'People like the bad guy. It's distasteful but it's human nature'

Peter Sarsgaard: 'People like the bad guy. It's distasteful but it's human nature'

By Louis Wise

‘I’m not a group person. I’m happy to play the loner guy that comes to town’ … Peter Sarsgaard Photograph: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

Unlike many actors, Peter Sarsgaard got some work during lockdown: an 11-minute short, shot by his wife, Maggie Gyllenhaal, on their rural estate in Vermont.

Penelope, now on Netflix, is the strange, moving story of a widowed farmer, facing a sad future, broken only by a delirious evening humping a tree.

“I’m never going to look at that tree in the same way again, and I don’t think that tree will ever look at me in the same way again,” says Sarsgaard.

He’s on lockdown again with his family, this time in Greece, where they are shooting Gyllenhaal’s directing debut proper, an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter. 

Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/08/peter-sarsgaard-maggie-gyllenhaal-the-lie-penelope