Imagine you're Jake Gyllenhaal

So what do you do if you're an actor who can't act and you need inspiration every time you tread on the boards? One thing's for certain, such an actor is not Jake Gyllenhaal, but Jake can be that inspiration. I was amused to read of a new satirical play - This is a Play - which looks like a bad play but is instead all about a bad, method actor who can only get by by pretending he is Jake Gyllenhaal. The picture below, however, is not from this, instead it's from the party that accompanied Jake's own celebrated debut on the West End stage in This is our Youth in March 2002.


But back to This is a Play... Written by Canadian playwright, Daniel McIvor, the satirical This Is a Play 'follows the backstage antics of three nameless actors: a young starlet (played by Lotte St Clair); an older actress (played by Janine Penfold); and a young male actor, Phipps, who psyches himself up by thinking of Jake Gyllenhaal. Together, they star in a play reminiscent of a Tennessee Williams melodrama.' "He doesn't have a name, he's just called male actor," say Phipps of his character. "I'd say unbelievably stupid is the best way to describe him. He's just so immersed in theatre that even he can't see it's a really terrible play [he's starring in]. But this is his life and he's a method actor and he'll think about Jake Gyllenhaal every time he walks on stage to really pump himself up. And he'll get so carried away, thinking about his own performance, and every five minutes he's just congratulating himself on his good acting and that's the way he gets through the scene. Maybe stupid isn't the word ... just blinded by his own talent, which there really isn't very much of to begin with."

So you can think of Jake Gyllenhaal all the time and that makes you a method actor. Phipps is on the right below.


The play is being presented by The Darlinghurst Theatre Company, Sydney.

Picture from IHJ.