“The bride is very disobedient”: Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s noirish Frankenstein spin-off

Only a rare and likely dishonest pundit could claim to have predicted the unexpected form of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to The Lost Daughter (2021). Far from the quiet, subtle drama of that directorial debut, The Bride! earns its titular exclamation mark. Luxuriating in wild swings between genre and character motivation while containing bold passages of steam-punk horror, pre-war gangster romp and unexpected musical numbers, Gyllenhaal’s second feature is cheerfully uncategorisable.

It’s 1930s Chicago, where Ida (Jessie Buckley) is possessed by long-dead novelist Mary Shelley while hanging out with pals and criminals at a fancy restaurant. She loudly denounces one mob boss (Zlatko Burić), is swiftly ejected and pushed down the stairs to her death. Meanwhile, Frank (a vaguely human-looking Frankenstein’s monster, played by Christian Bale) is looking for a bride. He enlists mad scientist Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening), and the pair dig up Ida and bring her back to life as ‘The Bride’. But after a violent turn of events, Frank and Ida are forced to go on the run, pursued by mobsters and the Chicago police, including Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his Girl Friday-turned-detective Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz).

Like the headline double-act of Buckley and Bale, Sarsgaard and Cruz are clearly having fun as they traverse Gyllenhaal’s wacky, noirish adventure, so we sat down to ask them about the art of detecting, their favourite screen stars and what marks out Gyllenhaal as a director.

Lou Thomas: You play a pair of detectives. Which of you would make the better detective in real life and why?

Peter Sarsgaard: Her.

Penélope Cruz: Yeah, because you have to enjoy this to be able to be good at it. That doesn’t mean I like gossip – I hate gossip! But they keep doing this and that and this and that [makes hand motions depicting detectives snooping around]. I have always been like this since I was a little girl. Sometimes I don’t even want to see that much.

Sarsgaard: I was about to say I’m really good with a secret, but then I forget it. I know I’m holding a secret and I’m certainly not going to tell anyone else.

Cruz: That’s why everyone would tell us everything – because they know we would forget.

You join an illustrious history of movie detectives. Who are your favourites?

Cruz: I love Poirot, and I was in one of them – Murder on the Orient Express [2017].

Sarsgaard: You know who I was obsessed with? He’s a funny one. Peter Falk as Columbo, because he would do the thing where he would go to leave, he would get to the door and go: “One more thing, do you drive a 1975 Chevy? I thought so.” Every scene. I love it.

This is your third film you’ve been in together, after Elegy (2008) and Loving Pablo (2017). What habits have you most come to admire, dislike or find amusing about each other?

Cruz: [mishearing] Hobbies?

Sarsgaard: [laughing] It’s the beekeeping that drives her crazy.

Cruz: We haven’t really developed habits, because the three movies have been so different. In the first one we didn’t even have anything together. And it’s always been so easy and smooth: great communication and almost knowing what the other one is thinking without having to say it.

Sarsgaard: We don’t talk a lot about the work. None of the scenes I have ever acted in with you have I ever thought to talk about it before we did it.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays fictional matinee idol Ronnie Reed, whom Christian Bale’s Frank is obsessed with watching on screen. Which movie star gets you watching obsessively and why?

Sarsgaard: Danny Kaye. To me that’s that type of performer I always loved. The Court Jester [1955], movies like that. He seemed like he was improvising the whole time. I wonder how much he was. He always seemed super-lively. I always loved Diane Keaton too, and Geraldine Page.

Cruz: For me, Anna Magnani, Victoria Abril. Meryl Streep, she’s always there – my number one. I think she’s my favourite actress of all time. Shirley MacLaine, I think she’s done incredible things.

What makes Maggie unique as a director?

Sarsgaard: She’s like an actor whisperer. She comes around, gives Penelope her thing, gives me my thing. Maybe they’re at odds or something interesting is being set up.

Cruz: She’s telling him maybe the opposite of what she is telling me. I love being directed that way. And, also, she can see everything.

Sarsgaard: When I read the beginning of The Lost Daughter, it was, like, “Do you have the keys?” “Is there another towel?” – lines like that. She’s so cinematic that it’s not just like a play.

Penelope, you’ve described the film as punk in tone. What do you mean by that?

Cruz: Rebellious and real. The bride is very disobedient, which is the only way to survive for these characters, especially all these women. Also, it comes from Maggie’s way of seeing the world and being in this world, which is being totally yourself and calling things by their name. 

The Bride! is in cinemas, including BFI IMAX, from 6 March 2026.