One friend to another - Jake Gyllenhaal interviews Natalie Portman

One enigma questions another - Jake Gyllenhaal asks Natalie Portman the questions in September's issue of Interview and although it is Natalie's interview the questions are our first chance to 'listen' to Jake in quite some time. The extract can be found here with the full interview soon to be in the shops. Here are some very brief extracts.

'PORTMAN: Thank you for saying that, but I’m far from fearless. I’m afraid of everything. But maybe when you’re afraid of everything, it sort of seems like you’re scared of nothing. GYLLENHAAL: Well, there’s no courage without fear, so you must have great courage because you’re afraid of everything.'


'I went to the Smithsonian just the other week—probably around the same time as you were at the Laserium. I saw this show that Liam Neeson narrated about black holes. I think they had it at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City first, and now it’s at the Smithsonian. But it was also one of those things where you felt like you were being transported back to the ’70s. We watched it in this dome, so it kind of felt like a black hole. It would have been weird if we were having these parallel hallucinatory experiences at the same time.'

'PORTMAN: And so I’m an actor. GYLLENHAAL: There’s very good money in that—not a lot of skill required, but very good money. PORTMAN: [both laugh] I agree. Lucky. I mean, I can ride a bike, but I feel like most people can do that. GYLLENHAAL: You could be a bike messenger . . .'


'GYLLENHAAL: My favorite situation that I was ever in was when I was on a plane with a group of people and all of them took Ambien except for me, and two of them had adverse reactions. They were awake and aggressive . . . Apparently aggression is one of the side effects of Ambien. PORTMAN: And they were completely unaware, right—like they didn’t remember it after? GYLLENHAAL: No, I think they remember it. Everyone else was dead asleep, and these two people were like, bashing their heads against the side of the plane, trying to jump out. So I was like, If taking this pill means that there’s even a 30 percent chance of me getting aggressive like that, then I would just rather stay at peace. PORTMAN: You’re a very peaceful man, Jake.'

Thanks to FF for the heads up!

As for the Massachusetts road trip? It continues and, as a taster for the next post, here we set sail for Martha's Vineyard. More adventures in the next post!


Pictures from IHJ and WDW.