I love the ocean.
When I was growing up in LA, the beach was not a part of my life, so I don’t really associate the wonders of the ocean with LA. But going to Venice Beach now feels really great. The air is so fresh and it’s always so breezy and salty.
I can speak French
well enough to have a pretty interesting conversation. I love Paris.
When I was little
, we had a cabin about two hours north of San Francisco in a place called Sea Ranch. We would go hiking and look at the tidepool and run around outside. It was very outdoorsy. San Francisco all the way up to Washington [state] is some of the most beautiful terrain you’ve ever seen.
There’s something about Rome
that’s dirtier than Paris. I mean that metaphorically.
Burritos in Arkansas
are a bad idea.
In Rome
there’s a place called Checchino dal 1887 (
+39 06 574 3816
) where I ate pasta with lamb intestines cooked with the mother’s milk still inside, so it formed a ricotta cheese. It sounds kind of disgusting but it was really good. In Paris, I love eating at Chez L’Ami Louis (
+33 1 48 87 77 48
).
I’m very careful about what I pack
. And then I end up wearing the same thing all the time.
It’s those little places
that don’t exist everywhere that are special. In Paris, I adore Isabel Marant (
+33 1 43 26 04 12). They don’t have a store in New York. I look for places like this in every city.
My last holiday
was in France with my fiancé [Jarhead actor Peter Sarsgaard]. We went to La Colombe d’Or (
+33 4 93 32 80 02
), a hotel in St-Paul-de-Vence on a hill, full of amazing paintings. There is a Picasso, a Léger, a Calder sculpture. You can touch them; you can bump up against them.
The older I get
the more I think the nicest place to be is home. I’ve lived in the West Village in New York for four years. I walk down the street and I see people I know. There’s a great little take-out place that’s been there forever, called Bonsignore (
+1 212 229 9700
). It feels like a proper neighbourhood.
Maggie Gyllenhaal's film, Stranger than fiction, is out on DVD. Interview by Tobi Cohen.
