Maggie Gyllenhaal says she placed her pinky over James Spader’s finger during a spanking scene in Secretary, then made sure the gesture ended up in the film. It was her way of signaling that her character, Lee Holloway, wanted the encounter with her boss.
Gyllenhaal wanted viewers of Secretary to understand that Lee wanted the encounter. During takes of the scene with Spader, she used a small gesture with her pinky to communicate Lee’s consent, then pushed to have it included in the film.
In a 2018 talk, Gyllenhaal recalled looping her pinky around Spader’s finger because “it meant consent.” She said she didn’t have the confidence to stop the set herself, so she explained it to Spader, who “told everyone else.”
Retelling the story in a conversation uploaded on March 9, 2026, she described putting her pinky over his hand and using it to “pull his hand toward me.” Director Steven Shainberg hadn’t noticed the gesture, she said.
In this account, she approached him herself, saying, “We should shoot this.” They filmed an insert that she says appears in the movie.
Released in 2002, Secretary follows Lee’s relationship with her employer, lawyer E. Edward Grey, played by Spader. Gyllenhaal had worried about how that relationship would be portrayed. In 2003, she said the wrong director could turn it into “an anti-feminist reactionary movie” and make Lee “this male fantasy that gets off on being submissive.”
The gesture hasn’t settled the question of how the film handles consent. Writing in 2022, Emily Kenway argued that neither Lee nor Debby, the protagonist of Mary Gaitskill’s original short story, “is asked for their consent at any point.” Madison Young also challenged the film’s depiction, saying, “I do not in any way think it is the model of a healthy sexual relationship.”
Gyllenhaal’s 2026 explanation centered on Lee’s right to choose. If Lee consents, she asked, “who are any of us to say that that isn’t what she should be doing?”
