Jake - don't put me in a box

Over the last day, we've had a good chat here about Jake Gyllenhaal's role choices, which probably isn't suprising as I think we're all eager to find out what's next for such a versatile actor. That made me think about what Jake is like when he wants a role and what will he do to get it? For clues, I looked to Jake's words and those of his directors, Ang Lee and Sam Mendes, both of whom, as did David Fincher, had Jake in mind for their respective projects, although they needn't necessarily have told him that. Fun and games.


So first to Brokeback Mountain and Ang Lee tells us that he cast Jake first for the role and did not audition Jake and Heath together; he didn't need to see any chemistry between Jake and Heath before casting Heath Ledger opposite his 'romantic lead'. The first time that Ang, Jake and Heath all met together was in a LA restaurant. When asked how he knew that they would have chemistry, Ang replied: 'I just imagined they were a good couple. I cast Heath very much as the short story required. I did something quite different with Jake. In the novel, he is even stronger, bulkier, shorter, very rough. Jake, of course, is more like a city boy. I think he is a good romantic lead, and I think he is a good counterpart to Heath. I cast Jake first and then Heath. I was hoping I would meet somebody like Heath. As soon as I met Heath I imagined they would be a good match for a romantic love story.'


Ang comments on how different Heath and Jake are as actors: 'they are pretty opposite. I think Heath is very methodic. I don't usually ask them. They don't have to tell me, they just understand what I tell them. When I see something I like, that's all that counts. What they use, how they get there—I never bother them. I guess Heath has a very meticulous way of approaching the character, because from take to take there is not a lot of difference. It's not like he pre-programmed it. He would respond, but he set himself in a certain zone that seemed to me pre-determined, and he kept refining it. Jake on the other hand was more free style. Every take he would have a wide variety, [but] with an understanding of what the scene was about, what the character develops. He'll respond differently. In a way, I think it's good, because Heath is really the anchor for that Western mood. So, it's good he's reliable and always that way. Very subtle changes. Jake, I sometimes had to remind him that innocence is on his side. As a young actor they are scary good, but they can forget that innocence is on their side. [If] they are too skillful, they are too good, they take away some of the innocence. So, basically just remind them.' Jake has said in the past that there were times when he didn't know what Ang expected from him and one suspects Jake may have felt a little lost and lonely in Ang's process of direction by osmosis.

Ang also says this: ' It never occurred to me that female fans, girls—what would happen to their careers.' I find that odd, I must say, that he didn't think that women would fall for his cowboys.


Jake had a far more difficult time winning the role of Swoff in Jarhead - it took four months before he even heard if he'd been successful or not, despite Jake's succession of midnight calls to the Mendes household (I believe Jake and Kate Winslet are still friends...). The fact that Jake made no attempt to disguise his eagerness to win the role seems to have counted in his favour, as Sam Mendes says: 'I am probably launching a whole series of midnight phone calls to me when an actor wants to play a role, but it does make a huge difference to a director to know that an actor is willing to go the distance. And they are willing to push themselves to the limit. And that’s what happened with Jake. He had let me know how badly he wanted it, and how hard he was willing to work for it... It was a pleasure to work with him. Apparently I made Jake wait four months to hear from me before I gave him the part. It wasn’t deliberate. I wasn’t being cruel. But I think one of the things that I was worried about is that we all know Jake as soft and puppyish, sensitive and fluffy-haired. But he became a tough young marine. Yes, he was innocent. And yes, he had to be accessible. But he had to be angry, frustrated and difficult… I had never seen Jake do all that before.'

'soft and puppyish, sensitive and fluffy-haired' - not much of that on show in Jarhead.


Jake told the UK's The Independent, in the comfort of a suite at the Dorchester, in the first days of 2006, why he had to do Brokeback Mountain: 'My agenda is to tell stories that I care about and that move me. And those were two stories that moved me. I didn't go, 'Oh, if I do Brokeback Mountain, it's not gonna put me in a box.' I'm crying after I finished the script and I'm, like, 'I will do anything to do this movie.'' Jake also talks about how terrible his initial audition for Jarhead was: 'I did a really bad job. And then I got ugly. Then I got really upset... I didn't punch him in the face or anything, but I would have if he hadn't given me the part... Ultimately, it was just my passion for it - calling him up in the middle of the night and telling him that and letting him know.' Neither role was mainstream: 'For me, growing up as a teenager was more like struggling with, y'know, identity in general, just who I was. I could very easily in the way I was feeling be talking to a big rabbit [as in Donnie Darko] and maybe I could be having an affair with an older woman [The Good Girl]. Those topics were more realistic.'

The Guardian in October 2005 reported on Jake's success with directors Ang Lee, Sam Mendes and John Madden [Proof]. Sam saw Jake acting in London in This is our Youth: 'I don't think I had realised until I saw him on stage how masculine he was,' recalls Mendes. 'He's a big guy, and he has the combination of soulfulness and "man of action" I was looking for. Also, he's very accessible. His face is accessible. His soul is accessible.' Madden says of Jake: 'He's got a very instinctive, unusual, loose kind of talent,' and so cast him in a role originally intended for an older actor.


In addition to learning that Jake starred in a home version of Cats, directed by Maggie, we also hear that Madden ''had auditioned a lot of people for Proof'. In London, Paltrow and Madden gave him his 'sides' from a crucial scene and, as Madden recalls, 'he nailed it. He was free with us, and as soon as we finished reading one very long scene he wanted to go back and read it again - and different things came out.'' Ang had decided to 'go with young and innocent and rely on their acting - because there's something about youth and the lack of knowledge that I think is the best part of the material. Heath Ledger is a natural cowboy, ranchhand type, and that's very quiet. And the other person should be more talkative, on the verge of being a city boy, but with all the open, romantic character in him - and very smart, of course.'


Sam Mendes recalls, 'I felt like he had not been stretched at all as an actor, but he was ready to be. And just meeting him, he was desperate to be punished on some level - made to feel things that he'd never felt before. You could say that he probably felt he's had it ... not easy, but not that difficult in his young acting life. Because, you know, he entered at a young age, and he's a goodlooking boy, and he's got showbiz family and all that kind of stuff, and he's come up sensing that that was always where he was going to go. But he felt, on some level, that he hadn't earned it. And he wanted to earn it. He wanted to work, and he wanted to explore himself. And I couldn't be more excited about the performance he gives.' Jake said that working on Jarhead was 'lifechanging.... Because I've worked with directors a lot who thought I was a certain thing and fit me into that box, you know. And Sam wasn't like that at all. And Ang is, though I hate the word, an auteur. The last two movies I shot, though I didn't know it at the time, were really about loneliness - and what you find in the loneliest of places. Plains and mountains that go on forever, deserts that are hot and dry with nothing growing ... and go on forever. That's why I gravitated toward them, I suppose.'


'Some movies you fall a step behind, and some you stay in the same place, make the same choices. And then sometimes there are people who know more than you but show you, and that's the maximum you can hope for - doing that with someone who says, "I like you for what you are, and I want you to be in my picture." I didn't have to fake it or put on a mask - all the resources I had inside me were more than adequate. I don't want to pretend to be something ... I'm not pretending any more to fit somebody's mould. That's a longwinded statement but - why not do what you really think, even if it's a mistake?'

Final word - how rumours catch fire

By way of contrast, I thought I'd also look at a good example of one of those rumours regarding Jake's 'next project' and how it spiralled out of control. The rumour was Captain Marvel and here discussing this case of 'celebrity arson' is screenwriter John August: 'It’s frustrating how in the digital age, random speculation turns to fact in about .003 seconds. And once it starts, it’s like a tire fire: any attempt to extinguish it merely creates a lot more smoke. Since it’s impossible to put the conflagration out, we can at least try to figure out how this case of celebrity arson began. My hunch is that it was a combination of factors:


1. The announcement that I got hired to write the movie.
2. The Captain Marvel illustrations that ran with the story, leading to questions of, “Who does that look like?”
3. Gyllenhaal’s recent visibility in Zodiac.
4. Jake’s sister Maggie being hired for the new Batman.
5. Recent trailers and leaked photos from Spider-Man 3, re-igniting… the old rumor that Jake Gyllenhaal was replacing Tobey Maguire.

'Amplifying all of these factors is what I call the Sticky Celebrity Constant: associating a recognizable star with a concept makes it exponentially more interesting.'


As far as John August was aware, Jake never knew of these rumours although, of course, should there have been a list of desired cast members, Jake's name would certainly have been on it - right at the top. Pictures of Jake as superhero Donnie Darko seem appropriate here.


Includes pictures from IHJ. I have replaced all of the pictures and so I hope this has solved the bug with this post.