Taking a breath: Jake Gyllenhaal in Montreal and Morocco

As I am forever saying here (and not just to put a certain tune in your head), it's a small world after all, and today that saying seems peculiarly appropriate and excusable because there is a Disney connection. It turns out that the screenwriter of The Day After Tomorrow, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, is also involved with the screenplay for that other small movie, Prince of Persia.


With Jeffrey's directorial debut, the thriller Traitor, about to be released, he may be looking for the next project: 'Obviously, The Day After Tomorrow and Prince of Persia are on this really big Hollywood scale — I don't think that's probably what I would go to next as a director. But, I like good story-telling.'


Although I am a big fan of TDAT (it was Sam Hall who first fluttered his eyes at me), one can't help but wonder if it was Jeffrey who was responsible for such memorable lines in The Day After Tomorrow as: 'I think we've hit a critical desalinization point' and, my personal favourite, 'I couldn't let you guys leave New York without seeing the Natural History Museum'. In the words of Jake Gyllenhaal: 'I like sitting in a tank with 700 extras going in the bathroom in it, and then reusing that water to then shoot another scene where you're drowning in water, that's disgusting, and it's hard, but it's not as hard as like trying to make a line like 'He will come' work. [Laughter] That's really hard.'


Jake goes on to say that not being able to speak English is not a handicap with this sort of script: 'No, but this is a movie that reaches a lot of people in a lot of different countries all over the world who don't all speak English, and who don't all understand 'Americanisms' and things.'


Jake did have a not entirely appreciated tendency on the set of TDAT to try and rewrite his lines: '"I probably annoyed the s -- - out of them because I really don't like the generic way things go,'' Gyllenhaal says. 'I rewrote scenes myself and brought them in, which, much to my dismay, they didn't... really... appreciate. But they listened. It's nicer to be heard out and then be thrown out than just be thrown out immediately.'' The aspiring scribe was particularly piqued over classic movie cliches: ''Any time I'd see that, I'd be like, 'That just seems like bulls -- -,'' he says. 'And some of it still is, and some of it isn't.''


Elsewhere Jake said: 'There were a couple of instances where I said, 'No way am I saying that line!' and they rewrote it. There won't be any subtitle saying, 'Sorry, these guys don't sound like real human beings, but they just didn't have the balls to say the dialogue sucked... Coming from a family where my mom is a writer, I just respond to how people speak. I thrive on the process of getting this stuff right. It drove them crazy, but it was fun. You have to entertain yourself when you're spending seven months in Montreal.'


But when all is said and done 'I'm really tired of people taking big summer movies too seriously, you know? We should all have a little fun' and 'Sometimes it's nice to lose a little subtext... Take a breath... for seven months... in Montreal.' I couln't agree more. This also seems like a good place to post another little soundbite for Jake from his promotion for this 'damn cool' movie.



Jake spotted in a North African garden

Jake has been spotted - last Sunday Jake was seen arriving at Yves St Laurent's Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh. Just the idea of Jake strolling around and enjoying the heady scents and colours of a North African garden is enough to make me want to see Prince of Persia right now. Hopefully, the film will capture something of this world. It's also good to hear that Jake is getting the chance to play the tourist.



The Unnamed Moon Project is out there

This isn't really news as such, but it does indicate that The Unnamed Moon Project is ticking along, still with Jake's name attached, and possible getting closer by the day - even though no-one will give this poor film a name. Alli Shearmur has been hired by Lionsgate to be its president of motion picture production. In passing, the article comments that Alli is producer of UMP and, not only that, she was also an overseer of that masterpiece Zodiac. Good news indeed and these sound like safe hands.



Includes pictures from IHJ and the Jardin Majorelle.