Jake and the Good Girl and friends

By all accounts, Jake Gyllenhaal's Good Girl audition(s) were memorable. Not only did he throw a chair into the newly painted wall of writer and actor Mike White, Jake also made Jennifer Aniston speak to his friends on the phone.


'"I called all of [my friends]," the 21-year-old actor said, jokingly. "[He] made me talk to them," Aniston said with a smile. "I'm at the audition, I'm like, (mimes talking into telephone) 'Dude, you guys hold on. Before I go, would you just say hi to my friend?' " Gyllenhaal said. "No, I got the part, and my cell phone wasn't working. It didn't get good reception in Simi Valley where we shot, so I couldn't really call any of my friends that often. But yeah, I was very excited. I think more so that [Aniston] was doing something that was so out there and that I'd be a part of that."'


As for the love scenes: '"We're not naked, so there's that," Aniston explained. "Let's just get that clear," echoed Gyllenhaal. "We weren't naked. I was only naked. She wasn't naked."'


Jen had no trouble breaking the ice with Jake: 'We met each other and adored each other right off the bat. It was easy. As for the bedroom scene, we just bit the bullet, man, it was quick. Miguel [Arteta, the director] had it all set up and ready to go. It was two takes and we were done. You just dive in fast and furious as you can. Like diving into a cold pool.' I always get nervous with the photo below, seeing Jake so close to the (alledged but still scary) Zodiac....


At the Toronto Film Festival in 2002, while promoting Moonlight Mile, Jake had another anecdote about filming those scenes with Jen: 'Aniston's husband, Brad Pitt, was good humored about it, says Gyllenhaal. "At one point, I said, `Thank you so much for letting me make out with your wife.' And he said, `Don't worry about it. We can share."'


For those who haven't heard it, here is the famous Wall Incident, as described by Good Girl director Miguel Arteta to the Philadelphia Inquirer in July 2002: '"I saw over a hundred up-and-coming young actors. And it's a hard part, because Holden at first seems like this incredibly attractive, intellectual, brooding hero. But then layer by layer, whoever was going to play him had to reveal a really out-of-control, deranged person. That's a lot of range. We would have these auditions (with) a scene from the beginning and a scene from the end and you could just see actors falling to one side or the other."


'Then Gyllenhaal, who had been shooting another pic, came in to test with Aniston. "We were in Mike White's brand-new house," Arteta says. "We were doing the auditions there with Jennifer, and Jake came in and got into this scene where he had to get angry and he picked up a chair and threw it at Mike's brand-new wall. He put a huge hole in it. Mike was like, `Well, he definitely gets the part, but he better pay me back for my wall.'" (OT: I can't mention Mike now without thinking of the Amazing Race Thailand Fiasco...)


Includes pictures from IHJ.