Insights into Jake Gyllenhaal's craft - 'He is a true clown - brilliant, tragic, and bittersweet'

Jake Gyllenhaal's creations over the years have been given the tag of 'misfit' on more than one occasion - Donnie Darko, Holden Worther and Jimmy Livingston spring immediately and uncalled to mind. But Homer Hickam, Jack Twist and Robert Graysmith were hardly well-integrated members of their society and Douglas Freeman was definitely out on a limb. Tommy Cahill looks to have all the hallmarks of misfit, not least because he begins Brothers locked in a cell. But does the label fit? Ask Jake and this might be what you hear...


'"Misfit? That's such crap... I find wounded to be a better word, but I don't like it sounding inactive, victim-y. I just choose these [roles] because there's stuff to do, whereas other characters are just 'the football jock,' or 'the nerd,' or 'the best friend.' If the material is good, it leaves me more room to play. I've had many chances in movies to be emotionally unstable."

"I feel like I've unintentionally boxed myself in because I've chosen good writing," said the actor. "For me it really just came down to that and continuously comes down to that."


Is Jake selling out by taking on blockbuster roles? '"I'm not going to; it's just that simple," answered Gyllenhaal. "I do have a strategy, in the sense that I am making a big movie with the hope that it will give me the opportunity to make the movies that I want to make. Actors have to make political decisions. They have to say, 'In order to do what I love to do, I need to make a movie that everyone is going to see.' But if I'm going to make that movie, I'm going to make it with integrity and I'm going to try to bring it to the most human level possible."'


Nicole Holocener, director of Lovely & Amazing, said of Jake: '"He responds purely and simply, I guess because he listens so well... He really focused on Catherine Keener and listened intently to everything her character said. He was incredibly focused but never took himself too seriously. He couldn't resist cracking us all up, which he did, all the time. He'd usually have four drooling females from the set laughing at his bad jokes. He is a true clown - brilliant, tragic, and bittersweet."'


Susan Sarandon: '"I can't say enough about him. I adore him. He's so smart and so agile at what he does. His work ethic and professionalism is way beyond his years. I find him inventive and questioning - and he's so cute. I learned a lot from working with him."'

On learning his craft: '"It just started off as wanting to mimic things. It came from an instinct of wanting to observe people."... However, he more recently came to the conclusion that his instincts as an actor could take him only so far. As he said, "Technique is, I think, what separates a child from an adult." His realization that he needed to develop an actual technique came from his awareness of his own limitations as an actor. "There are ways of saying and feeling lines that can lead someone to melodrama/bad acting, and I think sometimes I do go there," he admitted.'


'Gyllenhaal recently began working with an acting coach, though it took him some time to find the right one. Said the actor, "I went through a series of coaches and settled on working with someone, and basically what we do is, I go thoroughly through a script every day for months and break it down. I give everything a connection to something in my life. You can't play anything that's not close to you. That's what I've discovered throughout this year of performances I have been giving. I can't play anything that is truly real if I don't understand it myself."'


Work ethic: 'This spring Gyllenhaal performed with Hayden Christensen and Anna Paquin in the successful London production of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, an experience Gyllenhaal described bluntly as "fucking hard" but amazing. "It was the first time I tested out doing a tremendous amount of work," he said. "I know now that whatever I do next, I'll put so much preparation into it, out of respect for everybody involved, out of respect for myself, and out of respect for the audience that will see it." He added, "That's the thing that pisses me off about myself and about other young actors - approaching things nonchalantly." This wonderful interview was printed in Back Stage West back in August 2002.


Includes pictures from IHJ.