Heartbreak for Jake Gyllenhaal's Family as Actor's Father Files to Divorce Wife of 11 Years

Stephen Gyllenhaal, father ofactors Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, filed for divorce from his wife Kathleen earlier this week. Reporters from The Blast obtained court documents showing that Stephen has legally separated from Kathleen after 11 years of marriage due to "irreconcilable differences." He is seeking joint custody of their 9-year-old son Luke.

Stephen Gyllenhaal is a film director best known for the 1990s dramas Paris Trout and A Dangerous Woman, among many other credits. He had Maggie and Jake during his marriage to producer and screenwriter Naomi Foner, to whom he was married from 1977 to 2009. Stephen married Kathleen in 2011, and they went on to have another child together. Little has been said publicly about their divorce, though Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal did comment on their parents' divorce nearly a decade and a half ago.

At the time, Jake told PEOPLE that the divorce "allowed me to be more honest with myself." He expanded on his upbringing more last year in a profile by Esquire, telling his interviewer: "As you get older, you get to a place where you see yourself as you saw your parents when you were a child. And that's a really beautiful perspective. I've been on this earth with my parents for forty-one years, and it's a really deep, really complex relationship."

Stephen and Naomi had Maggie in 1977 and Jake in 1980. They began acting at a young age – Jake made his first film appearance in City Slickers in 1991, while Maggie made hers in her father's film Waterland in 1992. All four family members worked together just once in 1993 on the movie A Dangerous Woman.

In spite of this unusual upbringing in Hollywood, the Gyllenhaal children were exposed to hard work and other lifestyles as well. Jake recounted that he was offered a part in The Mighty Ducks, but his parents would not let him leave home for months to shoot the film. They also made him volunteer at a homeless shelter on his 13th birthday to gain a sense of perspective and gratitude for his own life. Jake also worked as a lifeguard and a busboy when he was a teenager.

Jake and Maggie have not commented on their father's divorce publicly, nor has Stephen himself. You can see the whole Gyllenhaal family working together on A Dangerous Woman now on PVOD stores including Apple TV and Prime Video.