Nailed moves on? Jake 'super well read' Gyllenhaal, and more TDK fun and games

It's possible, according to a blogger's report today, that the Statehouse sequence of filming for Nailed is at an end. The site describes a bunch of suits from the production celebrating finishing that part of the shoot at the pizza restaurant The Whig, on Main Street, Columbia. 'So the new Jessica Biel/Jake Gyllenhaal talkie "Nailed" wrapped up state house filming in Columbia and the producers were in town Saturday night to celebrate, or whatever a celebration amounts to for people with cell phones permanently attached to their ears.'


So it's up to our ears and eyes on the ground in Columbia to let us know if they spot a trailer, a camera or a Jake Gyllenhaal in the neighbourhood during the coming days.

One for the books

Jake Gyllenhaal is a reader and, speaking as someone who has been involved with books for most of their career, I thought today I'd imagine Jake having a quiet evening in his comfy chair, perhaps with a glass of wine balanced precariously on one arm of the chair and a leg thrown decorously over the other.


Aleksia Landeau played Cheryl in Moonlight Mile (the girl who wanted to offer comfort to the grieving Joe). In an interview, she said of Jake: 'He's great. He's super well read. He's very educated and he's got a real thirst to learn both working and outside of work. He's always reading.' Jake's love of reading extended to his choice of names for his dogs, although I must say that Boo is the perfect name for a small, cute dog, irrespective of its literary credentials.


When Chelsea Clinton and Jake interviewed each other for Interview magazine back in 2003, Chelsea, studying in Oxford at the time, asked Jake what he was reading: 'I happen to be rereading my favorite book, [J.D. Salinger's] Franny and Zooey. Have you read that book? CC: I have. Have you also read The Catcher in the Rye? JG: Of course. Many times, actually. CC: How old were you when you first read it? JG: I think I was 12. We went on a family vacation to Hawaii, and my sister gave it to me for Christmas, and I remember I couldn't put it down. You know, my production company is called Nine Stories Productions, which is an homage to J.D. Salinger's book of short stories. After The Catcher in the Rye I read everything he wrote. And now I'm back on another kick, reading them all again.'


'I think now I have an appreciation of the specific more than the broad--the ideas, the sort of Buddhism that pervades all of Salinger's work. You know, I think it's genius that J.D. Salinger doesn't want anybody to make a movie of his book, because there's no way anyone can play it. it is what it is to everybody. I've met many people who actually dislike it. Especially some women I know.'

This led to a rather intriguing discussion by Jake and Chelsea on who has more angst - boys or girls going through puberty. 'I think that male angst, especially in an adolescent boy's life, is very specific. I think girls moving into womanhood go through it earlier and in a somewhat different way. So by the time they're the age where boys start going through it, they've sort of already gone through it, and some people just don't relate.'


'CC: That's interesting. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who has a vehement dislike for the book. I know people who don't like it as much as I would have anticipated they would, but I've never had the benefit of having to defend why I like it. It's a special experience to read it when you are at the age Holden is in the book. I had to read it in high school, and it really compelled me and my friends to think about where we were in our lives. I would encourage people to read it in the hope that maybe it would have a similar inspirational effect. Did you feel Holden Caulfield-esque while you were making The Good Girl? Do you even agree with your character's interpretation [of the book]?'


'JG: There's something about him that makes me think he's only read that one book. He's so lost that he just sort of takes on this "Holden" persona because he understands it's universal. There's a funny line in the movie where [Jennifer Aniston's character] says to my character, "Your name's Tom?" And he says, "Tom is my slave name. Holden's what I call myself."'

I'm actually finding it hard to finish this post now, because Jake has got my brain ticking - on how we can adopt the thinking of a favourite character in a favourite book and use it as a fireblanket. Before I move on, I have to say that it's never easy to read with a horse looking over your shoulder...


Jake is clearly motivated by the scripts he reads, and/or the books that inspire them - the director is always an important factor for him but he needs to be moved by the written word (although one feels that with the Zodiac script, daunting would be a better word). This was true for Tony Swofford's writing: 'The book spoke to me... Tony Swofford has a certain style, in the same way that Dave Eggers has defined a certain generation of writers, so that when I read 'Jarhead' I really responded to it. I was the right age as all the guys who were going to the Iraq war now, and who were in Desert Storm back in 1990. And there was just something about the aggression, and having a part where you don't have to do hair, no wardrobe or anything. It's just basically you."


It was also true for the short story of Brokeback Mountain: 'I read it and it was beautiful, just beautiful. I knew that I wanted to do it.' Jake told the Independent: 'My agenda is to tell stories that I care about and that move me. And those were two stories that movie 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.'


So what else have we seen Jake read or heard of him reading? Jake told an annoying interviewer at Cannes that he enjoys the books of chef Jacques Pépin ('He has a very unique understanding of food'). He told another interviewer that he was reading John Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. And, from the photograph below, a clever reader at IHJ identified the book as Inner Revolution by Jake's Columbia professor Robert Thurman. Jake was also reported to have read Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin, possibly as a guide for his role in Rendition and, for Brokeback, the actors were all given Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest. Jake said: 'Before we started shooting, Ang Lee and James [Schamus, the producer] gave us books about first-hand accounts of guys growing up in the Midwest and their encounters with men and their attraction to men, and what that was, and even they didn't understand what it was, or what they were doing.'


The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight egg hunt continues and, thanks to Sheba, we now know that the London section involves something to do with Pall Mall in London at 9pm. More transparently, we also know that five more posters were released today and one of them features Heath.


And finally

During the publicity for Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow had something to say about Maggie Gyllenhaal and it's definitely worth repeating: 'Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby. She's my favorite, she's the best actress working. I'm obsessed with her. I think she is the real deal.' Never thought I'd say it, but good old Gwyn.


Includes pictures by IHJ, USA Weekend and links.