Jake - 'like Christmas and my birthday, if I have no expectations I will have a much better day and night'

Recent sightings of Jake Gyllenhaal in the Strom gym in South Carolina suggest that Jake may be in training for a new action role, possibly as the Prince of Persia, an opinion supported and given extra validation by our fevered imagination. But one reason why we may think this, is that Jake has done it before - to a lesser extent for The Day After Tomorrow and to a jaw-droppingly monumental extent for Jarhead. Participating in what sounded like a virtual triathlon every day of the week showed a degree of dedication most of us may never experience and the results, when paired with a shaved head, were enough to almost frighten Jake, his parents and small children and animals. However, it didn't have that affect on much of Jake's fanbase.


This article in the UK's Sunday Mirror features an interview with the man who put the iron into Jake's pump and turned a sensitive actor into someone who spent a fair amount of the Jarhead shoot either throttling, punching and threatening his co-stars or driving them insane with the repetitive misuse of music.


'Real Gulf War hero and Vietnam vet, Sergeant Major James Dever: "I made him live, breathe and sleep like a Marine," recalls Dever. "I showed him how they act, what they feel and how they bond. By the end of it...well, I guess we made an impression."' Unfortunately, this may not have been reciprocated because Sgt Dever also admits that Jake phoned him about Brokeback Mountain: 'Jake told me DON'T go see the movie because he knows how I am. I haven't seen it and I'm not going to. It is not one of the movies I would see. I saw Jarhead twice though as I like it.' Well, that's something, I suppose.


'The boot camp was so authentic that Jake had to call his trainer Sgt Major all the time. And to help him get into the role he was only addressed as Swoff - his part in Jarhead. "Jake really got into being a Marine. He wasn't great with drill but picked up weapons training pretty quick," says Dever, who retired from the US Army in 1998.'


This article also reveals the sensitive side of Jake with some honest answers about his view of himself as an awkward teenager: '"I was always really awkward and I still remember my first time with a girl," says Jake. "I was 15 and it was really clumsy and bad. "Taking off your clothes and having sex is such an intense experience. Then later nobody knows what to say to the other, even though nothing bad has actually happened. I'm still awkward with girls. I've never really grown out of it."' And, as a child, Jake learned that it is better to expect little and be surprised, a view that he brought with him to the BAFTAs back in 2006: 'The award is totally unexpected. It was such an honour just to be nominated. I have only seen other people do this. I didn't really expect it at all. But I have learned that, like Christmas and my birthday, if I have no expectations I will have a much better day and night.'


Not surprisngly, Jake seems to have revelled in his Jarhead self-confidence, so much so that he experienced no fear for the Santa hat scene: 'It was a scene that was written and as an actor you normally go through and read the dialogue - the only dialogue in that scene was, "Merry Christmas," - so I was like, "Oh, whatever," and then I'd just get onto the next scene where, you know, we had a lot of dialogue. I was more interested in those until I was sitting there naked in the middle of the desert with a Santa hat on my crotch! No real preparation involved. And no fear!


Jake talks more about the aggression that came into play on the Jarhead set here in the Daily Mail: 'We got no sleep, we worked every day non-stop and there was little communication with friends and loved ones. We were shooting some stuff in Mexico for two-and-a-half weeks. I was losing my mind by this point... You've got to let things out, and sometimes it got a little out of control... We just all got aggressive with each other, frustrated and bickered." But this was all part of dircetor Sam Mendes' plan: 'Yeah, Sam knew what he was up to. It was bringing the reality to 14 guys. We all rehearsed for a month and they put us in the middle of the desert. It wasn't like we were still learning our lines. He just put us in the desert and we all ended up hating each other, so it was great... Those ******* Oxbridge-educated directors.'


This Oxbridge-educated director also held up Jamie Foxx as a model for his other actors to the extent that, one senses, it did begin to grate: 'Sam would actually use it as an excuse whenever he was punishing other actors. *puts on fake British accent* "JAMIE FOXX! EVERY DAY! HE COMES HERE EVERY DAY AND HE'S AN ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ACTOR! HE'S ALWAYS ON HIS BEST BEHAVIOUR!"' I don't know if the caps suggests that Jake thinks British people always shout when they talk or if that is a reflection of Sam's volume on set.


An Education continued

There has been another media visit to the set of An Education, Peter Sarsgaard's movie in progress, which I have enjoyed following here. This visit focuses on Alfred Molina, who plays the father of young heroine Carey Mulligan. And we get to hear more of the storyline: 'This is the first time that Nick Hornby has written a screenplay not based on one of his own novels, and it’s a fictionalised, gently morally probing version of the evocative, sexually candid and rebarbative short memoir published in Granta by journalist and doyenne of interviewers, Lynn Barber.'


'Hornby has changed the names, but he’s kept most of the facts and poignant period conundrums: Jenny, a 16-year-old schoolgirl preparing for Oxbridge at a ‘posh’ London suburban school in 1962, having allowed herself to be wined, dined and seduced by an older man – flash-talking Bristol-driving, Rachman-esque property developer David (Peter Sarsgaard) – finds to her dismay that her parents, rather than protect her from him, spy a potential husband. It may be a comedy of errors, but in the scene I’m watching, Jenny’s confusion, disappointment, frustration and fears are reducing her to tears.' I can't wait to see it.


Includes pictures from IHJ, Rotten Tomatoes and WDW.