Maggie Gyllenhaal has opened up about the experiences of parenthood that she believes often go unspoken about.

• READ MORE: The Lost Daughter review: Olivia Colman’s latest Oscar-worthy performance

“They’re us,” she said about parents on a recent appearance on The Late Show. “They also want to have a drink sometimes, and they also want a night with their husband or wife, and they also want to work, and they want many things like we do.”

She added: “I love my children, but it’s a very complicated experience. And mostly, if it doesn’t fit inside this very narrow space that we’ve agreed we’re allowed to talk about, then they say something’s wrong with you. But in fact, how can you be a parent as anything other than a beginner, right?

“If we can include terror, real anxiety, despair, along with the heart-wrenching ecstasy on either sides of the experience that we’re allowed to talk about, I think it’s comforting to go, ‘You’re not the only person that ever had these feelings.’”

Watch Gyllenhaal’s interview in full below:

Gyllenhaal appeared on the show to promote her directorial debut The Lost Daughter. Based on the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante, the film stars Oscar-winner Olivia Colman as a woman on holiday who becomes obsessed with a woman and her daughter, causing memories of her own motherhood to come back and unravel her.

The film also stars Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Ed Harris.

In its four-star review, NME called the film as “an enthralling portrait of a woman tormented by her competing impulses.”

Netflix has acquired the rights for The Lost Daughter in the UK, with the film set to arrive on the streamer on December 31.