Many happy returns, Jake! It's time to celebrate!

Happy Birthday, Jake! It barely seems a year since your last birthday, the months have flown by so fast, but here it is again. And I hope it brings with it a happy day, complete with friends, pressies, feet up on the sofa/partying (delete as appropriate) and trifle. Please see the last post for the new pictures of Jake in Santa Monica yesterday. But while Jake sits back and unwraps the cookery books, Disney plushie, bottle of something, marzipan treats, new iPod touch, new games for the Wii and some smellies (I'm hoping members of my family are reading this), I thought I'd celebrate Jake's day by taking a look at just a few of the gifts that Jake Gyllenhaal has given us over the years, although there are far too many to list here. So, in no particular order...



Boyfriend magazine: 'I love waking up for work early, especially when it's around 4.30am. I love being on the set of a movie. Some people can't wait to get home, but that's not me. I could sit in my trailer or just hang around a movie set and be one of the last people to leave and be perfectly happy!'



Model Adrienne Curry: 'Jake Gyllenhaal is sexy because not only does he have a fabulous body, but he's also got this childlike innocence to him. You just want to pinch his cheeks and make out with him at the same time.'



'I don't think of myself as good-looking. Not at all. When I was a kid I had these huge glasses. I once went to a fancy dress as a Crest toothpaste tube with these huge glasses stuck on. That is how I see myself most of the time. A Crest toothpaste tube with bad eyesight.'



The LA Press conference for Rendition: Jake: 'What do they say? That the elephant and the donkey and that Emily Dickinson says hope is a thing with feathers and neither an elephant or a donkey has feathers.' Gavin: 'That's way deep.' Jake: 'There you go - see you later... all right... goodbye!'



Filmstew: '“You look like a nice mint chocolate chip cookie,” he suggests in reaction to the mint green blouse and a dark brown skirt I am wearing. “I do?” I ask, blushing and feeling like a 14-year-old. At my advanced age, it really does take a great actor to make me feel that way. “That’s my favorite flavor, so I’ll take that as a compliment,” I offer. ““You should – that’s my favorite flavor too,” he replies. Now I’m totally flustered. As a mature professional, I like to think I can handle any curve ball that’s thrown my way, but Gyllenhaal is looking at me with his adorable blue eyes and incredibly long eyelashes. “Okay, where do we go from here?” I say, stalling for time while I try to recollect my next question. “Let’s just talk about ice cream,” he offers, oozing boyish charm.'


Cosmo 2006: '[On being a secret naturist] Yeah [laughs]. I like to take off my clothes at the end of the day, I like to put them on at the beginning of the day and I prefer to keep them on throughout the day.'


'There was a scene where I was herding 500 sheep on my own, it's not in the movie, down this hill at sunset with, like, a horse. I felt so proud of myself, one, that I was actually riding a horse, two, that I was herding 500 sheep. And there were four or five cameras picking it up, and I remember coming down to the very end and Ang – I was so excited, and Ang said, 'kind of sexy'. That was what he said to me. And I said, 'Let's do it again!' He was like, 'Let's move on'. So my performance, really, I'd describe as 'kind of sexy', just kind of. And then the next scene we moved onto, I was eager to please. And I think he likes to keep that relationship with his actors.'




'I like to compare my relationship with Ang [to] a marriage in some ways. There's a honeymoon period, and then after that – you have the wedding and then you have sex like once or twice a year, but the sex is great, you know what I mean? [laughs] Both Heath and I were incredibly surprised to see Ang at press conferences totally articulate and really very clear about what he was saying about the film. We were both like, 'When we asked it was like...''


Heath on Jake about the filming of Brokeback Mountain: 'I actually ate two or three bars of Cadbury's chocolate each day to get as hyperactive as Jake. I just got fat by the end of the film.'


Yeah, it was like when I was auditioning for Bertolucci, he was like, 'You're going to have to get naked in this movie. If you don't want to get naked then you can't do it.' Roland was like, 'look this is a movie about the environment, and if you don't want to help the environment and get out of your car and recycle, you can't be in this movie.' It was a very similar discussion [laughs]. I know there's no irony in print, either.


On blockbuster movies: 'I love this type of movie. I'm a total pop-culture dork. All the movies I've done reflect where I am and this is one of those times I just wanted to have fun. I've done the sad, introverted characters so I was glad of the change.'


Michelle Williams: 'Honest to God, I did not see the two boys I know. I did not see Jake and I did not see Heath when I saw that scene - and I know both of them well (one of them better than the other). So often, when you're doing a shot like that, the other actors aren't there but I was lucky enough. After the scene I just asked them to embrace, to just hold each other. It was a sweet moment.'



'You grow up in a city and there’s everything around you all the time, and I don’t think you realise how lonely you are until you get out of there. You know, what I think about Brokeback Mountain is that the reason why these two men fall in love is out of loneliness. Like there’s just nothing more in their lives when they meet and it’s the best thing that happens to them when they meet there. And the same thing, I think, in a weird way, Tony Swofford has to go to that place of almost utter, desperate, horrible loneliness in order to become, in a way, the writer that he became. I don’t know, I just feel like you got to go to those places and somehow, unconsciously, I was there all of a sudden. I don’t know really why I picked those films.'


'[And have you emerged a different person?] Yes, definitely. To me, it’s hard to be sitting here and dealing with the result, you know, and talking about the result of them. For a long time I was very interested in the result, what people thought and all these things, but to me these experiences were not that at all. To me I’m a different person because of the process of both of these films, not because of the result of them. That, to me, is really important to distinguish, regardless of people’s judgements.'



'[Oscar buzz] There's a lot of talk about things like that when you're working with a director like Ang Lee, or when you're working with a director like Sam Mendes, because they are inevitably two Oscar-winning directors. When you're working with Jamie Foxx, when you're working with Chris Cooper...it's inevitable that people attach those things to those projects. But for me, I feel like all that I have really, as an actor, is the process...Both Sam and Ang have changed my life regardless of the result of any of these films. The processes of both movies have changed my life, and that's what I take away with me. And everything else is just fun. [laughs] And is a laugh, sometimes. And feeds the ego.'


Cosmo: 'Well, there is part of me that's Donnie Darko, I'm not gonna deny that, and there's a part of me that looks at the world now in a more mature way than when I made the movie. I was going through a tough time growing up, dealing with it and figuring it out, and that was why I related so much to Donnie. It's not like the growing up has stopped, but I do feel I'm different. There's a whole other part of me that's other things. I just haven't shown them yet.'




UK MTV Zodiac special: David Fincher: 'Jennifer Aniston cast this movie because she was saying 'Oh my God! Jake! You'll love him. he's fantastic! He's so charming, he's so great!' Jake: 'She can be one hell of an influence.' David: 'I had seen Jake in Donnie Darko and I'd seen Jake in The Good Girl and I liked that he could be part of something that was dark without having to play dark.'


'[It weighed heavily on Jake that David wouldn't do Zodiac without him.] 'Ach! It's so hard, it's so hard. I've got to tell you, I mean the hardest thing... I mean one day when we have more time, I'm going to go into it with you because to be... it's just tough, really tough. No. It's a nice story when you think about it now because that's the way David is. David gets something in his mind that he wants. It's wonderful when you're the actor that he wants and a lot of people at the time may have not had a lot of faith in you and he'll fight for you. He wanted me. He wouldn't make the movie without me. It was essential. That is what you want from a filmmaker.'



Happy Birthday, Jake! Includes pictures from IHJ.