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Sherrybaby
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 Sherrybaby Production NotesTagline: No one makes it alone.
Three years after entering prison for robbery as a 19-year-old heroin addict, Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) begins her first day of freedom, clean and sober. A model prisoner who has undergone personal transformation, she immediately sets out to regain custody of her young daughter Alexis (Ryan Simpkins), who has been cared for in her absence by her brother Bobby (Brad William Henke) and his wife Lynn (Bridget Barkan).
Unprepared for the demands of the world she's stepped back into, Sherry's hopes of staying clean, getting a job, and becoming a responsible mother are challenged by the realities of unemployment, halfway houses, and parole restrictions. Bobby and Lynn's concerns about Sherry's ability to care for Alexis, and her inability to prove them wrong, threaten to destroy the already delicate relationship she has with her daughter, as well as her newfound sobriety. Disillusioned and haunted by wounds from her childhood, Sherry is eventually confronted with life-altering questions about her own survival and what it means to be a good mother. Ultimately she learns that as the harsh realities of life often get in the way of her best intentions, sometimes it's best to take life one small step at a time.
Director's Statement
One of my closest childhood friends went to prison the year I graduated from college. I based the story of sherrybaby on her life. We used to party together in junior high and high school and I always looked up to her as someone who didn't take shit from anybody. I think I became obsessed with her story because in the back of my mind I knew that it could have been me going down that path.
Two other kids from my block died in their mid-30's from heroin, between them was also one little girl left behind. People think that stories of prison and drugs come from the ghetto. It's not true. We are a post-60's generation. We've done a lot of drugs and reveled in a lot of negativity. Some of us survived and some of us didn't. sherrybaby is for my friend and for all the rest of us who have weathered the storm.
I chose Maggie Gyllenhaal for this role because I believe she is the most exciting actress of her generation. She has a sparkling mind, a wealth of emotion and miles and miles of charisma. She has the ability to turn the darkest, most difficult characters into someone you would want to know. On top of all that, she has the integrity of an artist. I jumped at the opportunity to work with Maggie Gyllenhaal, and our collaboration is the reason I can call myself a director today.
sherrybaby is a film about hope — the hope of a young woman trying to reconnect with her child after a long hard road of drug addiction and prison time. It is a desperate, almost primal hope which exists beyond reason. But this is truly what hope is — an indomitable spirit that keeps us believing that life can be what we imagine. As a character, Sherry Swanson is the embodiment of hope because she has nothing left to believe in, and yet she still believes... — Writer/Director of sherrybaby, Laurie Collyer
From Sundance Lab to Screen
The process of creating sherrybaby began when Laurie Collyer and her script were selected to take part in the 2001 Sundance Filmmaker’s Lab in Sundance, Utah, where screenwriters and filmmakers meet each year to flesh out and develop promising projects. The Lab was an invaluable opportunity for Collyer to pull together the loose strands in order to finish her script, as well as to meet people that might help her see it to the screen. “The Sundance Lab gave me everything I needed to make my script good, to get the movie made, and to keep me humble for the rest of my life,” she says.
Laurie Collyer (Director), and Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherry Swanson) on the set of Sherrybaby.
When Collyer left the Lab with her script and began to take it around to producers, all of them told her that she would need to get an experienced actor attached to the project before she’d ever be able to get it made. By this time, Maggie Gyllenhaal had had her breakout performance in Secretary and was now becoming recognized as an extremely talented actress in the independent film community. Collyer got Gyllenhaal the script, and shortly thereafter met her for dinner in downtown New York to discuss the project.
Gyllenhaal was immediately very taken with the character of Sherry. “Sometimes there are scripts that just light something up in me. There was something about the script that was, I thought, really, really honest,” says Gyllenhaal of what drew her to the character and story. “Also, I’ve seen bad movies about people who are going through similar things to what Sherry’s going through and I thought this was an opportunity to make a really good one.”
Collyer immediately sensed that Gyllenhaal had not only the acting chops, but the character necessary to take on the weighty role. “She has a heart of gold, and with a project as personal and close to my heart as this is, I knew that was going to be very important,” says Collyer. After Gyllenhaal got on board, Lemore Syvan, who had recently worked with Gyllenhaal on John Sayles’ Casa De Los Babys, and Marc Turtletaub, with whom Syvan had worked with on Duane Hopwood, came on as producers.
The film shot for 25 days in July and August of 2004 on location in New Jersey. Because of the intensity of the material, it was a difficult shoot for Gyllenhaal, who sometimes found herself shooting as many as four very emotionally taxing scenes on the same day. For both aesthetic and budgetary reasons, the production inconspicuously shot in the neighborhoods and locations with a small crew and very little equipment, which contributed to the sense of realism and immediacy that pervades the film.
The Heart of Sherrybaby
“You know what? I used to get scared too…all the time.” — Sherry Swanson
At the heart of sherrybaby is the aching portrayal by Maggie Gyllenhaal of a young woman who confidently steps out from behind bars feeling ready to conquer her demons, only to realize that the choices and realities that come with freedom often make it very difficult to do so.
“Sherry is a woman who needs to make a choice and her choice is between being a mother and being a criminal. It’s the first time in her life when she’s confronted with the reality that she can’t be both,” says writer/director Laurie Collyer. “In prison she thought she had to confront it, but it’s a very isolated environment and she could get away with being a mother without having to deal with day-to-day survival.”
Unfortunately, Sherry’s instincts as both a mother and a self-sufficient human being are often misguided, and it isn’t until she is able to come to grips with the fact that she may need help that there is some hope for her success as both. “Sherry comes out of prison with the highest hopes that she’s going to be the best mother ever,” says Maggie Gyllenhaal. “She’s going to get an apartment, she’s going to get a great job, and she’s going to raise her daughter like no one has ever raised a child before. And then two weeks later she’s basically back in prison.”
Gyllenhaal gives an affectingly complex embodiment to Sherry, who has been, in some senses, toughened from her time spent on the streets and in prison, and yet is stunted intellectually and psychically from her three years away from the everyday realities and decisions that would arm her with the maturity to learn how to get by. “Sherry comes out of prison full of hope in a way that for a 23-year-old is naïve, but she was in prison for the early years of her 20s and a drug addict before that, so I think she is kind of like a kid,” says Gyllenhaal.
“She gets out of prison feeling like she’s going to take the world and make it hers, and when things go wrong for her, which they do almost immediately, she falls from a high, high place. I think that’s a much more interesting movie and a more interesting woman than someone who starts out really angry at the world.” One of the real victories of Gyllenhaal’s performance is her adept way at getting beyond the tough exterior of a woman hardened by years of harsh living to the adolescent that Sherry in many respects truly is.
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Ryan Simpkins as Alexis Parks and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Sherry Swanson in Sherrybaby.
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