Jake Gyllenhaal's experience of working with animals

Jake Gyllenhaal has a rapport with animals, of this we can be sure, and, no doubt, this will further be revealed by Jake's interaction with snakes, monkeys and camels in The Prince of Persia. But as we have to kick our heels and tap our fingers for a fair bit before we can enjoy that for ourselves, I thought today I'd have a look at the role of animals in Jake's working life - this post therefore excludes actual pets and it also excludes actual horses, because we've talked about them recently. It does not exclude plastic lobsters standing on their heads.


But, before dismissing Jake's pets all together, I should quote from Jake's account of his childhood experience of owning small, furry (sort of) animals: 'My parents got us two little poodles that were unshaven, they were all scraggly and dirty and everything. And I had hamsters that ate themselves! That happens. The poodles didn't eat them.' I must say that Jake is lucky his hamsters were intent on eating each other and not bits of him. Maybe the poodles had a sense of humour - that can make up for looks.


Part and parcel of being an actor is that you have to work with animals. Jake has been fortunate in that they haven't featured in every movie - Robert Graysmith was far too obsessed to own an animal and Douglas Freeman didn't have the time in his job to look after one.


Cats and dogs

I believe that Jake has never played a cat owner, although he has been one in real life. I have strongly resisted the urge to post the picture of Jake with the kitten. Instead, this is the only on-screen occasion that I can find of Jake with a cat, but it's not necessarily the kind of cat-owning behaviour I would advise.


The evil doctor didn't just use laser cats, he could call on another species in times of dire need.


Dogs have also featured elsewhere. In Moonlight Mile, Joe took care of Nixon the dog, which had unusual and interesting digestive habits, little improved, I would have thought, by the amount of peptobysmal Jake kept feeding him.


Both Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar had to be good with animals, both when at work and when off duty (or, as in this case, skiving).


Sam had less of a rapport with animals, especially canines.



Small, furry animals

Despite Jake's personal bad experience with cannibalistic hamsters, as Jimmy he had much in common with his guinea pig.


Rabbits have quite possibly - with the exception of horses - been the most popular animals in Jake's films and all kinds have been seen, and not all of them have been small and furry.



Not being a naturalist or a vet, I am not 100% sure that these following animals are rabbits, but going by earlength I am putting them in this class.



Ugly animals

Fortunately, ugly creatures are seldom seen in Jake's films. The most notable examples were Jarhead's scorpions. I thought that instead of posting a picture of a scorpion, I would post a picture of Jake looking at a scorpion.


And although Tobey Maguire did get the highly sought after Spider-Man role, young Jake did give it a good go.


Human-alligator hybrids were also a feature of Highway, and of no other Jake movie (of course, I can't know this for sure about the forthcoming releases, but I'm relatively confident).


Working animals and farm animals

Not surprisingly, the film about sheepherders features the largest number of working animals. In addition to the previously mentioned dogs, there were also several hundred sheep (not all of which were real but all of which were stupid).



I don't know whether bulls in a rodeo count as working animals or not, and I have even more trouble classifying this make of bull.


There was a cow in Bubble Boy, or rather two halves of one cow. Be thankful that in this picture it's enjoying (albeit dead) the final seconds of still being in one piece.


Wild animals

Coyotes usually thrived when Jack Twist was around, but when Jack and Ennis teamed up, elks didn't have it too good.


When Sam wasn't battering wolves over the head with a torch or leading them a merry dance through the bowels of a Russian ship in the heart of frozen Manhattan, he usually had little but the weather to contend with. But, at one point, Jake did find himself in a previous Ice Age and in another Roland Emmerich movie.


No animals were hurt during the making of this post - except for the CGI ones (they all came a cropper).


Thanks to Ruby for reminding me of certain animals (of course, I'm not saying that Ruby herself reminds me of certain animals but that her list did - camels were a no-go though). Includes pictures from IHJ and Sam's Path Petting Zoo.