Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

Naomi Gyllenhaal (born Naomi Achs; March 4, 1946) is an American screenwriter.

Life and career

Gyllenhaal was born in New York City , the daughter of doctors Ruth (born Silbowitz) (1920-1968) and Samuel Achs (1919-2014). Her aunt was Freda (Silbowitz) Hertz (1915–2013), a lawyer. She was raised in a family of "high-achieving New York Jews". Her grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland). She attended Barnard College in New York City, graduating with a BA degree in English. She later earned an MA degree in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University. She has written the screenplays for several feature films, including Running on Empty (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and won a Golden Globe Award for the same category), Losing Isaiah, and most recently Bee Season. She played the character Naomi in the Love of Chair segment of The Electric Company, where she was an associate producer for two seasons. In 2013, she made her directorial debut with Very Good Girls, starring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival before attaining online and theatrical distribution in the U.S. with Tribeca Film. She is currently collaborating on a script for an American-Chinese co-production titled Moon Flower and the Flying Tigers.

Jake Gyllenhaal

Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal (/ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl/ JIL-ən-hawl; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at the age of ten. Following his first lead role in October Sky (1999), he starred in the indie cult hit Donnie Darko (2001), in which he played a psychologically troubled teenager alongside his older sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal. In 2002, he starred in another indie film, The Good Girl. In 2004, he appeared in the climate fiction-disaster film The Day After Tomorrow, portraying a student caught in a cataclysmic climate event.

Gyllenhaal played a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005) and, the same year, his role as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain earned him critical acclaim. For his Brokeback Mountain performance, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the Academy Award in the same category. He has since played lead roles in many films, including Zodiac (2007), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Love & Other Drugs (2010), Source Code (2011), End of Watch (2012), Prisoners (2013), Nightcrawler (2014), and Southpaw (2015).

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Margalit Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal (/ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl/; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress. She started her career as a child actress in films directed by her father, Stephen Gyllenhaal. Her younger brother is actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

In 2002, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance as Lee Holloway in Secretary. In 2006 she was nominated for her second Golden Globe Award for her performance in Sherrybaby. Her other films include Donnie Darko (2001), Adaptation (2002), Happy Endings (2005), World Trade Center (2006), and The Dark Knight (2008). For her performance as Jean Craddock in the musical-drama Crazy Heart (2009), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2014 she made her Broadway debut in a revival of The Real Thing, and also starred in the television mini-series The Honourable Woman. For her performance as Nessa Stein in the latter she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Gyllenhaal family

Gyllenhaal is the surname of a Swedish noble family descended from cavalry Lieutenant Nils Gunnarsson Haal (died 1680 or 1681), ennobled in 1652 with a change of surname to "Gyllenhaal".

Family name

The name "Gyllenhaal" originated from Nils Gunnarsson Gyllenhaal's father Gunne Olofsson Haal, who was from Hahlegården, a crown homestead in South Härene Parish in the county of Västergötland in West Sweden. Haal comes from the name of the farm estate "Hahlegården". In the Knighthood Letter, signed by Queen Christina, the family name was written in two different ways — first "Gyllenhahl" and then "Gyllenhaal". On the copperplate with his coat of arms now hanging in the House of Nobility (Riddarhuset) in Stockholm it is spelled "Gyllenhahl". Such ambiguities are typical of the time; it would be several generations before Swedish spelling was more strictly regulated. The prefix Gyllen ("Golden") was the one most used when ennobling someone since the 16th century.

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal, great-great grandson of the above-mentioned Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal, quipped during an interview prior to the British premiere of Prince of Persia that his last name was pronounced "Yil-en-hoo-luh-hay", parodying Americans' difficulties with Swedish pronunciation.

Dakota Fanning

Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress and model. At age seven, her performance in the 2001 film I Am Sam earned her a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award at age eight in 2002, making her the youngest nominee in history. As a child actress, she went on to appear in high-profile films such as Man on Fire (2004), War of the Worlds (2005) and Charlotte's Web (2006).

Fanning then began the transition to more adult roles with Hounddog (2007) and The Secret Life of Bees (2008). Her recent film roles have included the eponymous character in Coraline (2009), Cherie Currie in The Runaways (2010), Annie James in The Motel Life (2013), and Jane in The Twilight Saga (2009–12).

Although the focus of Fanning's career is acting, she also has fashion-related jobs. Her debut in modeling came in 2009 when she made the cover of various magazines like Elle, Vanity Fair, and Cosmopolitan, among others. She also appeared in the fashion week in New York in 2014, at the opening ceremony of Fashion Week New York Spring / Summer 2015.