Jake on Douglas, Rendition DVD, awards and the perfect job

A new video interview with Jake Gyllenhaal has emerged, by The Inside Reel, in which Jake talks with some animation about why he got a kick out of playing Rendition's Douglas Freeman. This is a character designed to make audiences raise their clenched fists to the screen, urging him to take action, but Douglas is without experience and is unaware that he's holding the key. As Jake says, this is a movie about juxtapositioned themes - there are those in the film who have energy and know what to do but are hitting a wall and have that energy and there are others who have a clear view, but just sit there and do nothing at all.




A little more detail has emerged about the release of the DVD for Rendition in February. According to the always useful site DVD Times, the R1 release will contain: 'Audio commentary with director Gavin Hood; “Intersections: The Making of Rendition” documentary; “Outlawed” featurette; Deleted scenes with audio commentary; Alternate scenes; Theatrical trailer.' Of course, the obvious bad news with this is that Gavin's name is the only one associated with the commentary, but I'm not giving up hope just yet. There is also an image.


An Evening with David Fincher transcript

A full transcript has been released now from the NYC Evening with David Fincher that took place a week or two ago, in which the audience (including our very own CWG) were treated to a preview of the Director's Cut edition of Zodiac. Here is David's answer in full on his way of working with his actors, which includes his admiration for the greatly neglected but scene stealing Anthony Edwards:

'I don’t know that I was going for a style. I was pretty specific about Avery, what he— … I knew my dad was a journalist; he worked for Life magazine, I knew a lot of those guys. I had to get Robert to understand that kind of intellectual showoff that Paul Avery needed to be for the movie. It seemed to me, he’s auditioning jokes for whoever in the room would appreciate them. Graysmith was easier and harder because Robert was available to us and we could sit down to talk with him, he could say “this was going through my head.” But to get at the guy when he was 22 or 23 when the whole thing started and get that to make some kind of sense… It was more about like making what Jake had to do believable for Jake, to make it work for him, and Ruffallo went off to meet with Dave Toschi a couple of days and came back as Dave Toschi. It’s hard to appreciate, ‘cause what’s he doing in this movie seems odd, but that’s who this guy is. He really nailed it. We were so nervous when they screened this in San Francisco… but everybody was very happy with Dave Toschi. He’s very sweet—I mean he did have an ego a little bit out of check and he did want people to write stories and his hubris, his need for that kind of attention was his downfall, and we wanted to get into that a little bit. Ruffolo just managed to catch this guy. No bullshit, Tony Edwards did a truly thankless job—a role not a lot of people even wanted to to take--he came in and was so radiates decency at every moment.'


Congratulations to Peter and Heath

Congratulations are due to both Heath Ledger and Peter Sarsgaard, both of whom have films in competitions announced this week. Unfortunately, Heath is not one of the actors nominated for a Spirit Award for the abundantly nominated I'm Not There, although it is possible that the ensemble will get a shout. Peter's new film, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, is among those in the competition at Sundance.


And finally

Jake is going to be away for a while, hard at work on Brothers, but the odd little bit of information will undoubtedly emerge from the set. Unlike this, which is hardly information, almost certainly not true, and talks of disharmony between Tobey and Jake over, of all things, a makeup artist. I would have thought that, on the contrary, the producers will be looking after their leading men and lady very well indeed. Does this look like a guy who needs to worry about that sort of thing? I rest my case.


Includes pictures from DVD Times, The Reeler and IHJ.