Screen Brief was fortunate to attend an exclusive press conference with Maggie Gyllenhaal for the launch of the new trailer for her new film ‘The Bride!’.
The new film is directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal (Academy Award-nominated writer/director of The Lost Daughter) and stars Academy Award nominee Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) and Academy Award winner Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, The Fighter).
In her bold, iconoclastic take on one of the world’s most compelling stories, a lonely Frankenstein (Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance! It releases in cinemas worldwide on March 5, 2026.
We had the chance to submit questions for the press conference, and here’s what Maggie Gyllenhaal had to say.
Maggie Gyllenhaal on the concept for The Bride’s story and motivation
Host: The Bride! feels like a bold stylistic swing compared to The Lost Daughter. What excited you about jumping from something intimate and quiet to something much louder and heightened?
Maggie Gyllenhaal: When I made The Lost Daughter, it came very naturally. I was interested in the book, I wrote the script, I cast it and put it together. It was a tone and feeling that came very naturally to me. I noticed that telling the truth about something with that movie felt a bit taboo and hit a nerve. After that experience, I wondered, what would happen if I tried to tell the truth about something else and do it in a big pop way?
What was the first idea that started your journey to making The Bride, was there any breakthrough moment?
I was really in the midst of consider, what is this story going to be if I want to go big? I was at a party and I saw a man with a tattoo on his whole forearm of The Bride of Frankenstein, and it just hooked me. People have been pitching me things, with different ideas, different IP, and nothing was sticking.
When I saw this tattoo [of the Bride] I was like, “oh yeah, have I even seen that movie?” I know the image, I know the character. And I went back home, I looked her up online, and I was like, right. Elsa Lanchester, original Bride of Frankenstein, just has this impact. The way she looks … Something about her is formidable. And then I watched the movie, which I hadn’t seen, and I realized she doesn’t speak.
I thought it was really interesting that here’s this movie called The Bride of Frankenstein, which is really not in any way about The Bride herself, and yet Elsa Lanchester makes this impact, even though she’s in the movie for three minutes and doesn’t speak. Why? Well, because she’s kinda badass. Also because (and this is actually a new idea that’s coming to me right now) but she wakes up and says no. That’s unusual, that’s formidable power.
So I asked, “How can I take this idea?” Frankenstein is a monster who does awful things, but he’s also beautiful, and kind and lonely. So his request for a mate, which is part of the book, is really understandable. At the same time though, what about the mate? He’s asking to have someone brought back from the dead to be his girlfriend. What about her? And that’s what this movie really gets into. What if she comes back and has her own needs and agenda. Her own wants and her own terrors.
Maggie Gyllenhaal on the concept for The Bride’s style, tone and inspiration
Your style for The Bride! seems to blend classic Gothic elements with neo-noir mystery. What were some of your inspirations for the film?
I was interested in subverting a classic movie style. So yes, Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands and even Metropolis. I think about a movie like Wild at Heart that subverts those classic movie things in a David Lynch way, which is different than my way. Stylistically, I just let my mind open up and roam. So of course there are inspirations, but I think I just let it go anywhere at all. What’s also very vulnerable about putting the movie into the world is that it comes from me in a very open way.
How did you decide the 1930s suited the themes and ideas as well as the style you wanted?
Well, I love the ’30s. But as I’ve said before, I first set the movie in my mind in the1860s or ’70s, because there was a big movement at that time, of women who would speak to the dead for you. This was after the Civil War, and lots of women were losing their children in childbirth.
So I thought, in a movie about people who have come back from the dead, maybe that’s an interesting time to set it. But then as I was writing, I realised Frankenstein’s so lonely, and his primary relationship before we meet him, is with a movie star. Because a movie star is someone you can imagine you have a relationship with and they don’t know you at all.
So once I realised I wanted Frankenstein to have a relationship with a movie star, it had to be set in a time where there are movies. So I chose the ’30s. I love the 1930’s aesthetically because the movies from that are era about fantasy love, fantasy looks, fantasy everything. But it’s also important to say that my version of the 1930’s is different. It’s the ’30s by way of downtown New York 1981 and now. So it’s a ’30s that comes out of my imagination.
Jessie Buckley, who plays The Bride, has described her as proper punk. Does it feel punk to you grounding these bold visuals with such a dynamic feminine pathos as the driving force?
I do think the movie is punk, yeah. But punk just a celebration of something that doesn’t fit easily into a box. The movie’s totally punk. At the same time, I remember when I first started working with Christian Bale for this, he started sending me images and videos of Sid Vicious, and I can’t give too much away, but that’s straight up punk, right? So, there is that aspect of it. I loved those references and that he was thinking that way.
I love Frankenstein as punk, but I there’s a whole new other kind of punk, which is making this movie where The Bride of Frankenstein is the centre. I think even that choice itself, has a punk aspect to it.
The punk themes feel so tied to music. Is there any punk song you think fits best for the themes in The Bride?
Punk is a lot of things. I think you could have a punk song from 1936 or from right now, even if it didn’t go in the punk genre. What comes to mind actually is probably considered a punk song. I would say the Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of the Iggy Pop song, “The Passenger”. I think vibe-wise it fits right in with the movie, and also, The Bride of Frankenstein is presented as the passenger when that is absolutely not what she is. She’s driving this story.
Thank you for reading our coverage of this exclusive Q&A with Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Bride!
When sharing any quotes from this interview, please tag @ScreenBrief on social media and include a link to this article.
A very big thank you to Warner Bros Australia and Universal Pictures Australia for providing us to access to the press conference.
You can watch the new trailer for The Bride! here:
The Bride! is in cinemas on March 5, 2026.
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