Jake: 'I would do a play at school and look into the audience and see the reaction on everyone's face, and that's what I love'

Today's been a busy day, completed by attending a public lecture by a visiting American prof. It, therefore, seems apropos to take a look at Jake 'Student' Gyllenhaal, who, no doubt, took studying to new sexy and hot levels, never seen before and never to be seen again.


One unlucky side effect of being a gorgeous young actor is that you not only attend school/college in real life, you then have to do it again for the cameras. As Jake once said: 'I tend to play troubled kids'. No wonder he's now enjoying playing chest-baring princes of Persia. As Jake told the Guardian: 'As a young actor, you're often asked to play a typical clichéd teenager... But I have this objective idea that I'm not going to do some stupid high-school movie, and if it is a high school movie then I'm going to get in the ambitious car, rather than the one that has its destination marked out for it.'


Jake's acting began in school, quite apart from his childhood success in City Slickers. It is reported that 'While still in school, Jake took acting lessons, and appeared in school plays, including playing the role of Fagan in Oliver Twist in second grade. While attending Harvard-Westlake High School in North Hollywood it is rumored that he was in the choir.' We know from Conan O'Brien, that Jake was also a whizz at modern dance.


Jake told Boyfriend magazine: 'I remember when I was little that I loved acting coz I wanted the attention! Then I would do a play at school and look into the audience and see the reaction on everyone's face, and that's what I love. Now it's become more than that.'


Not surprisingly, if you can act the role of a kid at school, you don't actually want to be at school in real life: 'Regardless of the influence of these incredible filmmakers, my parents forced me to stay in school, much to my dismay at the time. At the end of high school they allowed me to get an agent and start auditioning professionally. So it all came about from there. Since I had already made somewhat of an impression on the film industry as a young kid, people had faith in me and took me on.'


When Jake chose to do Bubble Boy, some people (who obviously can't appreciate good humour, fine acting and atrocious hair when they see it) questioned Jake's choice. Jake had no doubts why he did it - Daily News 2002: '`The question comes,'' says Gyllenhaal, almost with a sigh. ``Honestly, I didn't want to go back to school. I wanted to work. I did that movie because it was a comedy and such a wacky character. For me, it's about the character, obviously.''


But, while Jake was at school (Knightridder 2001), 'he caught the acting bug in ninth grade. He came down with a bad case of acting flu while performing in a skit. He and his friends were singing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" when he realized he wanted to be a professional actor... Jake followed his sister to Columbia University in New York, but unlike her, he did not graduate. He says his decision to leave school had nothing to do with his grades. "Actually, my grades were pretty good, except for the `F' I got in my class on dinosaurs. That was the hardest class I ever took."' Two points here - what has Bohemian Rhapsody got to do with acting and how can anyone not enjoy studying dinosaurs? (Did Jake not have dinosaur wallpaper as a kid, as I did?)


Jake told the same source: '"It was hard for my parents to accept my decision at first," the 20-year-old actor said in his Los Angeles hotel suite. "After all, my sister (actress Maggie Gyllenhaal) had just graduated from Columbia, and they were so proud of her. But my sophomore year was a tough year for me, both emotionally and intellectually. I felt slightly schizophrenic because I was trying to live a regular college life, but I also wanted to be creative. I had no creative outlet at school, so I was thinking a lot about acting. It was difficult to juggle classes with the constant phone calls from agents offering me film roles. I was so confused, but eventually I knew I had to make a decision. And I believe I made the right choice.'


But education's loss is our gain, although, back in the days of October Sky, Jake was at pains to stress that he did enjoy school (Soundbites): 'This past year I'm sort of focusing on school more. And the movie itself and its emphasis on the importance of school. It made me want to go back. And I think it's so important to get an education, so to inform your work, and interpret the text so that you can understand the subtext and the underlining meaning of the text, you know... I just believe that it's so important. At the same time focusing on school, not trying to be pulled in by my passion... I mean it's really hard to be sitting here and doing this to be talking about something you love more than anything in your life and also knowing... AND I love school so much... and know that I need that so that hopefully I can... again hopefully... have a good career.' And he told the Guardian then: 'I wanted to get back to what people my own age were doing, to grow up a bit in real life.'


But in the end 'I had gone to school to be intellectual and cerebral... but there isn't an acting program at my college, and I'm happier when I'm acting. I don't want to be seen as an icon for college dropouts.'


As for college life, there is every chance that Jake's fridge had green slime growing in it: '"I'm majoring in Eastern Religions, but I have to take the [required] curriculum first, so at this point I'm taking a lot of English classes, modern poetry, and English Literature." Also, "I find as a student I almost never eat." However, in an interview at college, Jake was found eating Doritos, and drinking berry Snapple. Maybe not exactly nutritious, but still a good snack!' What on earth is a berry Snapple? The mind boggles.


Includes pictures from IHJ.