# Maggie Gyllenhaal - attractive, or am I missing something? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 19, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800 "2010-06-19T19:40:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/41 "2010-06-19T23:18:50Z")
so the answer is… she’s cute ENOUGH, and has a girl-next-door-factor that’s through the roof ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/42 "2010-06-19T23:33:57Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Sissy Spacek You, too? OMG, have you seen the video of her twirling a baton from _Saturday Night Live_? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/43 "2010-06-19T23:37:35Z")
I think she’s hot. She’s got a nerd-girl hotness that’s appealing to me. ---
**Author:** ![TheFifthYear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@TheFifthYear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFifthYear)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/44 "2010-06-19T23:41:35Z")
I think she’s totally hot, no qualifications necessary. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/45 "2010-06-19T23:55:39Z")
I was quite distracted by her in Dark Knight. I kept thinking “was there an ‘expanded universe’ scene set between the movies where Katie Holmes got beat in the face with a baseball bat and after some healing and plastic surgery this how she turned out?” Probably unfair, maybe even cruel, but it’s the only way I could reconcile the character being the same one as in Batman Begins. I don’t know why they didn’t just have her play a totally different character, it’s not like whatsername is an important part of the Batman mythos. Or even part of the Batman mythos outside these movies. ---
**Author:** ![luv2draw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@luv2draw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luv2draw)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/46 "2010-06-20T00:34:09Z")
Nothing I can specifically put my finger on, but I can’t freakin’ stand her. She needs to go away. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/47 "2010-06-20T01:21:23Z")
I think she’s attractive. But I get why others wouldn’t. She’s not conventionally pretty. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/48 "2010-06-20T01:25:16Z")
If I met her in the real world, and she wasn’t famous and I was somebody worth talking to, she’d excite me. She has a charisma I find compelling. But in Hollywood terms, I can see why she doesn’t ring everybody’s bell. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/49 "2010-06-20T01:57:21Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > If I met her in the real world, and she wasn’t famous and I was somebody worth talking to, she’d excite me. She has a charisma I find compelling. > > But in Hollywood terms, I can see why she doesn’t ring everybody’s bell. Ditto. It’s purely a gut reaction thing, but she seems like a person you could get lost in. I don’t know exactly what that means, so take it how you will. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/50 "2010-06-20T02:23:36Z")
Secratary…mmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/51 "2010-06-20T02:24:53Z")
I think she looks better in most of the pictures posted here than how she looked in Dark Knight. She didn’t look pretty, or at ease. Most of her clothes did not look pretty on her. I was thinking if she was supposed to look homely, if that was the intention. She also looked a hell of a lot older than the other characters, especially at close-ups. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/52 "2010-06-20T02:38:44Z")
A cute face, but horrible posture (she stands like an osteopathic 80 year old) ruins her attractiveness for me. Also, I don’t know if she smokes, but I get a gravelly-chain-smoker vibe from her. All of those same issues ruin Gwyneth Paltrow from being attractive to me also. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/53 "2010-06-20T02:52:56Z")
She’s pretty, but she’s not Hollywood beautiful. She’s not bad looking, although her features are a tiny bit odd, and she has a real sweet but tough vibe to her. More girl next door than runway attractiveness. OTOH, for some reason, in Stranger Than Fiction she’s smoking hot. ---
**Author:** ![Jihi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jihi/32/17768_2.png) [@Jihi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jihi)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/54 "2010-06-20T02:57:56Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Actually, I thought she was exactly the type of woman a couple of men like Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent would think of as their soulmate. Do you think those two would care about superficial beauty? > > She was perfectly cast. I just want to reiterate this point. In _Dark Knight_ Rachel is supposed to represent two things, carried on from BB where it’s spelled out more explicitly… 1. Bruce’s lost innocence and his desire to reattain that as his childhood friend. 2. A sense of purpose in a world gone mad. (_slap_ “Your father would be ashamed of you.”) Maggie’s not conventionally attractive but that’s not what Bruce or Harvey were looking at. FWIW, I thought she was a better actress than Holmes and she grasped the concept of a Rachel who was drawn to Bruce but recognized that he was too emotionally damaged to lead a normal life. ---
**Author:** ![Camus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ba8739/32.png) [@Camus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Camus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/55 "2010-06-20T03:23:29Z")
> [@Lunchy](#): > > I don’t find her attractive. My friends don’t find her attractive either. That said, she would have been fine in Dark Knight if The Joker didn’t call her beautiful 3 times. It almost felt forced. To me she looked like a shaved rat. To be fair to the Joker, though, he was psychotic. His judgment is impaired. ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/56 "2010-06-20T04:43:55Z")
I think her lack of stunning beauty actually works well for her as an actress - sometimes being too attractive can distract from a role or cause people to not take it seriously. If it was a drop dead gorgeous woman playing her part in, say, World Trade Center, it would have been a bit less believable (I noticed that everyone cast in that film was very “real world” attractive). In contrast, I have seen The Dark Knight but barely remember anything about her performance - so maybe in that one she faded into the background due to it being a very visual film. Either way I think she’s pretty enough. Her brother, on the other hand, is ridiculously hot. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/57 "2010-06-20T05:01:17Z")
I believe the term for her face is ‘elfin’, which means she looks like a thousand year old male Irish dwarf who’s been hiding in a tree stump with his gold. Hence the bad posture. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/58 "2010-06-20T05:13:32Z")
I don’t think she’s any kind of traffic-stopping beauty, but what bugs me about her appearance is that she always looks like she needs to wash her face/wash her hair/comb her hair/style her hair/stand up straight/put a bra on/put a decent outfit on/put an outfit that FITS on/etc. She’s just kind of a hot mess, is what I’m saying. That’s fine for you and me as we sit on the couch and eat chocolate-covered peanuts, but we’re not walking a red carpet at the Academy Awards. ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/59 "2010-06-20T05:17:16Z")
I saw her on The View once and Whoopi had to let her know that her hair was sitting weirdly on top of her head due to being carelessly brushed back - I agree that sometimes she just looks messy rather than unattractive. Many other famous women would be mortified if a hair was out of place (can you imagine Mariah Carey sitting on The View with a giant tuft of hair floating weirdly near the front of her head?), but I get the impression Maggie doesn’t really care that much. ---
**Author:** ![Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8baadc/32.png) [@Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nicest_of_the_Damned)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800/60 "2010-06-20T05:17:34Z")
Straight female here but I always thought she was striking if not traditionally beautiful. \*She doesn’t seem like the type to have “work” done. If she did she would probably look more typically Hollywood. Especially now that she is getting a little older and has had a baby. Jake seems to have gotten the Hollywood looks in the family but she strikes me as the smart one. He was just painful to listen to in the commentary for Donnie Darko. Though he was pretty young then, he may have gotten more articulate. ETA \*Thought I’d better google that first to see if I was being naive. Looks like rumors are floating around that she had plastic surgery earlier this year: [http://boards.ign.com/movies\_lobby/b5236/189113528/p1/?12](http://boards.ign.com/movies_lobby/b5236/189113528/p1/?12) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maggie-gyllenhaal-attractive-or-am-i-missing-something/543800.md?page=4)