Maggie Gyllenhaal in Bill Monroe biopic

Maggie Gyllenhaal is set to tread the perilous path of married Hollywood types making movies together by starring alongside her husband Peter Sarsgaard in a biopic of musician Bill Monroe.

Any film lover worth their salt will agree that Hollywood couples working together can go either way – J-Lo and Ben Affleck was wrong, Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany was alright.

But Gyllenhaal seems to think it'll work. While talking to Screen Crave during promotion of the latest Nanny McPhee film, Gyllenhaal had this to say:

“Bill Monroe, who invented bluegrass music had a kind of Sid and Nancy style affair with this woman Bessie Lee Mauldin throughout his life and T-Bone Burnett’s going to do the music and Callie Khouri - who wrote Thelma & Louise - wrote the script so we’re going to do that together.”

Monroe was often branded the Father of Bluegrass, having invented the bluegrass style of music. Finn Taylor has signed on to direct. Could this avoid the car crash movie couples curse? It certainly sounds promising.

Next for Gyllenhaal, though, will be Hysteria , which finds her character having an affair with the man who accidentally invents the vibrator.

Fan of Monroe? Looking forward to this? Talk to us…


Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.