Peter Sarsgaard is a pretty respectable actor in Hollywood with a long list of formidable cast credits. He’s one of those names and faces you know you’ve seen time and time again in films, with both large and supporting roles throughout the last few decades. Well, now that he’s married to Maggie Gyllenhaal, he’s apparently becoming one with nature. Ahead of the debut of The Batman, in which he has a starring role, Sarsgaard reflected on having sex with a tree under the direction of his wife for a Netflix project.
That’s not a euphemism for anything, Peter Sarsgaard actually gets down and dirty with a tree for a Netflix short called Penelope, which is directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. In an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Sarsgaard talked about the experience, and apparently “it totally makes sense” in the context of the short. Here’s what the Shattered Glass star had to say on the matter:
It feels post-apocalyptic thing. But one of the features of the show is that I do make love to a tree. And it builds up to it in a very natural way and it totally makes sense. I’m dropping this on you right now, but you actually feel for both of us. But this is on our actual property that we shot it. So since then I’ve been back out there doing my little chores and all that. Every time I walk past this tree I have this kind of… it’s like I can’t look at the tree, the tree can’t look at me.
To be honest, I don’t know if the fact that it was his own tree makes the situation better or worse. There is a whole new level of comedy in the way that it was Peter Sarsgaard's own wife who directed this kind of scene, though. Maggie Gyllenhaal is no stranger to weird, though, as she’s also a wide-ranged actor and starred alongside her brother Jake Gyllenhaal in the iconically odd Donnie Darko and basically did 50 Shades of Grey before 50 Shades of Grey did with HBO’s Secretary.
Peter Sarsgaard will (re)enter the DC universe in The Batman as District Attorney Gil Colson opposite Robert Pattinson’s debut as Batman next year. Interestingly enough, Sarsgaard is following in his wife’s footsteps in that regard, as Maggie Gyllenhaal had her own stint with the Batman franchise by playing Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight.
In addition to the Netflix short Penelope, Maggie Gyllenhaal directed Peter Sarsgaard in The Lost Daughter, which will arrive on Netflix this December. Gyllenhaal won’t be taking part in The Batman neither as an actress or a director, so there most likely won’t be any making love to trees in Gotham. However, if you’re interested in watching the new version of Gotham City's Caped Crusader, you can catch The Batman in theaters on March 4th.
