Maggie Gyllenhaal in Biopics About Inventors of Vibrator and Bluegrass

Maggie Gyllenhaal has played all manner of characters in her time, from IRS-dodging baker to an S&M-loving secretary, and yet she keeps managing to stake out new ground.

While making the rounds in support of her upcoming film "Nanny McPhee Returns," Gyllenhaal has been talking up to new projects, one about bluegrass legend Bill Monroe, the other about another type of hero.

"Bill Monroe, who invented bluegrass music, had a kind of Sid and Nancy style affair with this woman, Bessie Lee Mauldin, throughout his life," Gyllenhaal told Screen Crave. "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."

The film is currently using the title "Blue Moon of Kentucky," based on Richard D. Smith's biography of Monroe called "Can't You Hear Me Calling."

And then there's Gyllenhaal's other project, "Hysteria."

"I play a firecracker whose father is a doctor who is in the business of curing hysterical women. He cures them basically by getting them off and that actually happened," said Gyllenhaal. "I end up having a sort of unexpected love affair with this guy who works for him, and who by mistake invents the vibrator."

Both films are tentatively scheduled for 2011.

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