Jake Gyllenhaal - the reluctant and unusual sex symbol

Jake Gyllenhaal is in the Dutch papers again today. This time, Jake is featured in SP!TS and it draws on another interview Jake made while in Cannes. As we have grown accustomed, it includes little treats from Jake on his role choices as well as a portrait of Jake as an uncomfortable and unusual sex symbol, not quite sure on how to handle all this attention.


The feature makes the point that, when Jake stood on the red carpeted steps of the Palais du Festival in Cannes, it was a surprise to him that it was he who received most of the attention and not his famous co-stars Mark Ruffalo and Chloe Sevigny. 'Even at the fully crowded press conference of the festival premier of Zodiac, it's very noticeable that he is the star. Director Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) gets some questions asked. But Ruffalo and Sevigny are mostly skipped; all the attention goes to Gyllenhaal who, sometimes almost literally, is being stripped with questions. This is because a lot of people from the glossy/womens magazines have noticed that the dorky teenager with the dreamy eyes, who had his breakthrough with the cult hit Donnie Darko, has changed into a grown man who has everything it takes to be a sex symbol. A very unusual one, that is.'

This sex symbol status is due, not a little bit, to Jake's celebrated and phenomenal performance as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain. "I was told that it would be dangerous to play a gay cowboy but that movie has opened up a lot of doors to me and therefore will always be a very special part of my career. But now I have to move on, because you don't want to get stuck, even in that kind of success."


The role of Robert Graysmith in Zodiac may also seem an unusual and brave choice, not least because we see relatively little of Jake's character during the first half of the film. "My character is always present during the evolution of the story, but most of the time he hasn't a lot to do. David Fincher explained it to me like this when we were discussing the part: 'during the first part of the movie, you are nothing more than an extra, but when the movie reaches the climax, the main character in the movie will be you'. I found that quite an amusing observation. In reality, it was a bit of a disappointment. All day I walked around the set of the newspaper where I work in the movie, and all I could do was just to sit in the corner and wander around."

As for why Jake took on the role: "As an actor I'm always attracted to the more extreme characters. But in this case that was hardly a factor when I decided to take this role. When I read the script I was sold immediately. 'Wow, this has actually happened.' The murders, the paranoia that was spreading across society. Zodiac had a huge impact. The movie did not have the amount of success in America that other spectacular movies have, but it's these kind of deep extraordinary stories that I want to tell."


Thanks again to Jimmy from IHJ for finding and translating the article, as well as permitting me to use it. In places I have used my own very rudimentary Dutch so all mistakes are mine, and not Jimmy's! Pictures from IHJ.