Jake Gyllenhaal showing his feathers - Moonlight Mile and the Graduate

Following yesterday's post which took a look at Jake Gyllenhaal side by side with a range of fellow actors in photographs taken at the kind of events to which moviestars get an invite, I thought today I'd take a look at Jakes relationship with one particular actor who has had an influence on Jake's career - Dustin Hoffman. This is also prompted by the happy fact that I saw Moonlight Mile again at the weekend after far too long a time.


My personal feeling about this relationship is that it was both productive and prickly - and maybe a litle awkward - coloured by parallels with The Graduate and by Dustin's sense of paternalism for a young and gifted character actor. But also, Jake Gyllenhaal was promoted as the film's leading name while Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon were 'the support'.



While Jake and Susan appeared to have a deliciously flirtatious working relationship, Jake's with Dustin seemed much more that of deliberate mentor and polite student. Jake got round the potential awkwardness of being the leading name with charm: 'I think thank God that I'm not supporting him because I wouldn't be able to hold him up. Thank God that he's supporting me because he can most definitely hold me up.'


Jake's working relationship with Susan Sarandon was very different: 'I think that everyone kind of feels like they have to tiptoe around icons like that. And with the younger actors, I think that he does like to do a little trip, a little intimidation game. I would, you know, show my feathers and he would rip them out... Yeah. I think the dynamic kind of showed itself in the film a little bit too. Working with Susan though was a much more relaxed experience. Maybe it's because it's male-female versus a male-male dynamic, but with Susan, we just really became friends. We talked and we hung out... And they have two totally different styles of work. I mean, Susan does two takes. Dustin works forever and has little pieces of brilliance. Susan has no notes on her script and Dustin has eight thousand notes all over his script and they both get to the same end. As a young actor, it's a little confusing because you're wishing for a key!'



'Before the film, Gyllenhaal said, he was confident that he was a "pretty damn good" actor. But watching Hoffman and Sarandon made him realize "I didn't know what the hell I was doing." Gyllenhaal said Hoffman taught him the importance of "preparation being a real discipline," and that acting "should be just as hard as anybody else's work." "That's something a lot of young actors take for granted. They rely on spontaneity to be their muse. But preparation is a muse, too, and it can lead you to real spontaneity," Gyllenhaal said.'


As for how Susan got along with Dustin: 'Sarandon said her and Hoffman's real personalities are "close to the dynamic" of the characters they play: "Me saying 'Shut up, Dustin' and him talking and talking. But in a loving way."
"He's a happy family guy, and my family is very important to me, and that was a bond for us," she said of Hoffman. "He was completely open and unguarded and not the least bit competitive. It's not uncommon to come up against an (actor) who, in the alpha male tradition, sprays his territory. But (Hoffman) was very gentle, completely cooperative, exploring, curious and not in the least cynical."'


Comparisons between Jake and the young Dustin were common at the time, especially with reference to The Graduate. Jake said: 'Hoffman started out wanting to change things and he did: he made some great stories, like The Graduate, that are still in our consciousness now. I feel like it's really important to do something new and be like those people I respect.' And here, at a press junket: '"Oh, you're going the 'Graduate' route," Gyllenhaal said with a sigh, after being asked about the similarities. He reports, with some alarm, that an early review of "Moonlight" called his performance "a Benjamin imitation."'


'"That's so interesting because I had no knowledge I was doing that, but now it's being classified as that," he said. While he acknowledges the echoes, he says, "People are only drawing these comparisons because Dustin's in the film." Hoffman's also in the room, being interviewed at another table. Gyllenhaal, who beams in Hoffman's presence, shouts across the room to his co-star: "She says I remind her of you!" "You're taller, you're better-looking, and when I played your character, I was 10 years older," Hoffman shoots back, without missing a beat.' Dustin made comparisons himself between Jake's Joe and his Benjamin: 'Joe is like Benjamin in that he is in a place where he does not know what to do next. I didn't feel different playing a different character in the same scenario.'


Dustin also recalled that Jake reminded him of his own son, another Jake, with whom our Jake was friends: 'Jake is friends with my 21-year-old son. In fact I think they might be blood brothers as they've shared some of the same girls - but not at the same time!' (South Wales Echo).


Jake has commented that, even when Dustin was not officially working, he would still stand behind the camera advising Jake. '"He talked a lot about how making movies is a team effort," Gyllenhaal said. "He would be on the set when he wasn't working. There's a lot of [closeups of] me just listening, and he would be there, standing behind the camera, to talk to me."' (Star Tribune.) And according to one report, that encouragement could bruise: '[Dustin] encourages Gyllenhaal between takes, critiquing him in ways that seem gently, genuinely helpful. At the moment, though, Hoffman is more concerned about the beating he's laying on his costar. The scene they're shooting winds down with Hoffman giving Gyllenhaal an enthusiastic slap on the knee and springing up from the bench where they've been talking. But Hoffman has been dishing out that same slap for hours now. "Jake's going to take his pants off and he's going to have a black- and-blue mark," Hoffman chuckles.' (Boston Globe.)


Most famously, Dustin was a big influence beind Jake's decision to take to the stage for his award-winning perfomance in This Is Our Youth and Dustin was there to watch in the theatre. But Jake did resist Dustin's advice that he should not take the role in The Day After Tomorrow and instead wait and see what came along - Jake opted to have some fun seeing the other side of movie making. 'I said, 'Dustin, I really want to make this movie.' And I think he's been through movies that haven't been his cup-of-tea – he'd rather be the storm in the movie than the storm itself! And I totally respect that. But I grew up with those movies. I go every summer to all of them. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to do it. It's a lie to say it's a career-movie, or it's a lie to say the character is amazing – I just wanted to be in a movie like that' (IndieLondon).


But Dustin's role in Moonlight Mile was word perfect. I loved this account by Dustin of the scene in which he kissed Jake's Joe goodbye: '"I remember that moment exactly," Hoffman answered, leaning across the table. "I'll tell you the story. I like to block out all the business I'm going to do in a scene first: 'Okay, I'm packing up my office, I see a photograph of my daughter, I cross to show it to Jake, I say goodbye.' I walked through it a few times, then Brad [Silberling] said, 'Let's try one for the camera.' So I go through the scene, I'm not expecting anything, I stand in front of Jake, and suddenly I'm completely overwhelmed, out of nowhere I'm weeping, weeping, I can't stop, and I have to turn away."'


'As he's saying this, Hoffman's voice breaks, and I look up from my notebook to see that recounting the moment is making him cry all over again. Tears are plopping from his eyes and his voice is getting thinner, but he keeps talking: "Brad is saying, 'Where are you going?' and I'm saying" -- here Hoffman hides his face behind one raised arm and slashes the air with the other, as if to signal Stop -- " 'It's over Brad, the scene is over, I can't do it again, I don't even want to look at him any more.' And that's the take we used."... He was crying freely then, his cheeks glistening.'


Three other interesting tidbits sprng to mind - Moonlight Mile was supposed to have been called Baby's in Black but the Beatles' song was too expensive to purchase, Brad Silberling initially considered Keanu Reeves for the part of Joe Nast, and Jake said: 'I've had the most horrible haircuts in every movie I've been in... I've actually had people ask me, `Do you wear wigs in your movies?'' Not much changed there then...


And if you want to see a cartwheeling Jake, then look no further than this Making of Moonlight Mile video.



Includes pictures from IHJ.