Jake can afford to be picky - he's like a fine wine

I suppose if you've been on Mars this week - or commuting more than Jack Twist's four hours a day but on a bus not a horse - then you may not realise that the Bourne Ultimatum has been packing out the cinemas in the US and is about to open in the UK. The first thing to note about this is that the film comes with the possibility of a Rendition trailer - some have seen it, others have not, and who knows if it will accompany the movie to this side of the pond. The second thing of note is that this film, the final in the trilogy, has put Matt Damon in the news as the most bankable star in Hollywood - not the most popular and not the highest paid - just the most cost-effective.


In other words, a studio gets more for its money for Matt Damon than it does with Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. This also suggests Matt is a safe bet. If I were Matt or his rep I don't think I'd really know how to take this. I might put my rates up. But it also sums up what I think about Matt Damon and his acting - he's undoubtedly a good actor and he's been in some excellent films but I would argue that that's about it. He's dependable and you can usually rely on the film being good (although I can think of some exceptions), but does he have that special, indefinable, stellar like quality that you can find in other actors - let's pick a name at random here... how about Jake Gyllenhaal?


Jake Gyllenhaal and Matt Damon share some patterns in their career - they have both carefully selected their roles and not made the obvious choices. Like Matt, Jake has opted for movies with a lower budget, even taking a paycut - as with Rendition - when he thinks the project merits it. Brokeback Mountain was another relatively inexpensive film; Donnie Darko was made on peanuts. The exception is The Day After Tomorrow which won Jake some much deserved attention, not least for his movie star appeal. Jake Gyllenhaal is not necessarily cost-effective, although I suspect he is for the right project, but he's more than reliable: he tests himself and tests us. I was very interested by this article in the Independent about Matt and the attributes that make a star bankable. Personally, I've never been a fan of Matt Damon because he lacks a certain quality that I find in abundance in Jake, but it is fascinating to compare their careers, with Matt that bit further on and experienced.


This coincides with another feature doing the rounds on the net that studios are desperately trying to sign up the few available stars before a potential writers strike. It seems Jake is one of the few that's available - at least as far as we know. Not all actors are keen to resume work so soon after completing a project - Matt Damon included. Other actors reported to be taking time off include Johhny Depp, leaving Jake, Hugh Grant and Joaquin Phoenix as the available leading men.


Jake himself said in an interview with Backstage, soon after the completion of Brokeback Mountain, that he was concerned about over-exposure, very aware that he was in four films in quick succession: "I didn't mean to be doing this many movies, and I didn't mean for them all to come out at the same time... I'm actually very picky about the work that I choose, and I really feel strongly about it when I end up doing it... When you have John Madden and Ang Lee and Sam Mendes and David Fincher ask you to be in their movies and the movies are good and the parts are amazing, you just can't say no." These circumstances just don't happen very often.


Incidentally, in this same interview, Jake also reflects on that moustache of Jack Twist's - the first time I've heard Jake discuss it! "I spent the entire second half of the movie trying to pull off that mustache, literally and figuratively" - should have tried harder, Jake. That's all I can say on the topic.


Jake and fine wine...

As most of you will know, I am a little partial to the heady combination of Jake Gyllenhaal, a fruity red wine and Dairy Milk. This August, Somerset House in London iselbrating Film 4's summer films. To mark its sponsorship of the event, Campo Viejo carried out a survey among Brits to discover which stars they felt were like mature wines. Jake made the list, which is actually quite surprising, because Jake is no maturing wine - unlike the winners of the male and female polls, George Clooney and Helen Mirren. But Jake did get a full 21% of the vote for the men (Kirsten Dunst coincidentally got 21% of the vote for the female stars). I like to see Jake featured so highly in British polls because it just shows he's on our minds - demonstrating to one and all just how bankable he is.


Includes pictures from IHJ.