On Late Night, Peter Sarsgaard talks about wife Maggie Gyllenhaal directing him to make love to a tree

Apart from being the celebrity couple most likely to see their names misspelled (it’s the double double-a that does it), Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal are also a versatile filmmaking team. Appearing on Tuesday’s Late Night, Sarsgaard, currently tackling the Perdue Pharma-caused opioid crisis as part of the Hulu series Dopesick, told Seth Meyers that the couple’s pandemic filmmaking projects have been especially fruitful. (Keep an eye on that last word going forward.)

While Sarsgaard is excited for people to join in the gathering Oscar buzz surrounding Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut, The Lost Daughter (where he stars in support of Olivia Coleman and Dakota Johnson), he’s also proud of his starring turn in Gyllenhaal’s segment of the Netflix COVID anthology Homemade. On being directed by Gyllenhaal in the short film, titled Penelope, Sarsgaard told Meyers, “It’s really lovely being directed by your wife.” Which is a good thing, as Gyllenhaal’s quarantine-shot tale of a man (Sarsgaard) going mad in the wake of an even more devastating plague than the one we’re going through, winds up having sex with a tree.

Telling Meyers that the short was made by the couple on their socially distant Vermont property, Sarsgaard confessed that, yes, he does occasionally have to walk by his former co-star while doing chores, and that, yes, it’s a little awkward for them both. “It seems to me that she gave you a role that, maybe, you would only offer to a husband,” opined Meyers, with the Shattered Glass and An Education actor only giving the explanation, “It builds up to it in a very natural way, and it totally makes sense.” (You can watch Homemade on Netflix and decide for yourself.)

Segueing, somehow, to Sarsgaard’s current starring role in Dopesick, the actor told Meyers that both his personal experience in having someone affected by the Sackler family’s opioid profiteering and his time directing the opioid crisis entry in the Norman Lear and Shonda Rhimes-produced documentary series America Divided gave him all the background he needed. Noting the degree of “understanding, empathy, patience” he gained from making both projects, Sarsgaard explained that those are “all of the things you’re going to need if you’re around somebody who’s going through this.”

After another tough tonal shift, Meyers then also engaged his guest in a round of dueling Michael Keaton impressions, as Sarsgaard’s time alongside his Dopesick costar has taught him one key element to impersonating the Oscar-nominee. “Michael Keaton actually never begins or ends a sentence,” explained Sarsgaard, “He only does the middle part.” And while Sargaard’s natural voice hews ever-closer to John Malkovich territory, the actor did whip out a particularly well-observed impression of Michael Keaton explaining why he owns a particular brand of automobile. For his part, Meyers responded with a one-word approximation of Keaton listening intently and then agreeing with what you’re saying.