[Updated] Jake and Stephen Gyllenhaal in NYC - and 'if anyone tries to get into the kitchen with me, I'll kick their butt'

Update: It's been a while, but today we have new pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal - here he is out and about today (25 October) in NYC with father Stephen and a very big bag. Good to see you, Jake! Source.





On with the post...

With all quiet on the Gyllenfront, I thought I'd break into the attic, creak open the cobwebbed WDW archive chest and dust off a parchment from those distant days of 2002. Settle back with a big, fluffy cushion, a mug of cocoa perched on the armchair, and listen to Jake.

The scene is set: '"strangely lovable." That's Jake. Whether impersonating a coal miner's son who dreams of building a rocket in "October Sky" or a demon-ridden teenager in the glorious midnight cult flick "Donnie Darko," Gyllenhaal is unwaveringly lovable in a rummy, I-was-a-teenage-alien fashion.'


'Maybe it's the ungainly tension between the searching billiard-ball eyes, the sprawling piecrust lips and the sinewy track-runner frame. Whatever he's got, he has dodged the generic teen-comedy trap and created a uniquely off-center niche among his peers. And thanks to his character's moonstruck obsessions over Jennifer Aniston and Catherine Keener in "The Good Girl" and "Lovely and Amazing," respectively, he has also become a kind of media poster boy for younger man-older women romances. "Older women have been a lot nicer to me," he admits, sipping cranberry juice through a straw at New York's Bowery Bar. "You know, I like being a spokesperson for that type of relationship. It's not so racy. I don't know if anyone's read Oedipus."'


'"You ask me do I consider myself angst-ridden?" he says, betraying a residue of defensiveness that lingers after two weeks of cockamamie interview questions. "I'm drinking out of a straw. I don't know how angst-y that is. No, I mean I hope it's not ridiculous to say that I consider myself an actor. What I don't feel like people totally understand is that for me as a young actor, the parts that have emotional depth at the age of 20 or 21 are the ones who are 'screwed up,' the ones who have a breakdown the way adults would, the oddballs.'


'"I think Jason Biggs is a genius in that type of film. If I were to go into those, I would not do as good a job. I hope the movies I do will be true to those [particular] times in my life. It's the only way I can believe them. When I had done this recent chunk of movies, I was kind of grappling with these same sort of existential questions. Actually connecting to my mother and father and sister, rather than fighting like an adolescent. Not being happy or creative at college. I found myself in a depression for a little while, and these movies were a therapy in a way."'


'He considers himself more Jewish than otherwise. (His given name was the biblical Jacob and his middle name, Benjamin, belonged to his great-great grandfather.) He wasn't bar mitzvahed, in the traditional sense. "We had this weird cultural mix, a sort of christening bar mitzvah. Hooting and howling with my father, praying with my mother." (Swedish meatballs instead of cocktail franks?) "We had our share of goy white-trash food."'


'Cuisine is actually a big deal for Gyllenhaal, who reads Cook's and Savor magazines cover to cover and spent the better part of the summer working magic with vegetables from his parents' garden. "I'm trying to work my way to great cook status. The first rule in my family is that if you are going to spend money on anything, spend it on food. My dad and mom were heavily influenced by their travels in France when they were younger. Ever since I was born it's been: You get the freshest food wherever you can and you make something out of it.'


'"I went on a road trip with my friends from Boston to Toronto recently and we made this concerted effort to stop at little places with good food. You find interesting people when you find good food, people with an interest in the specific, and the sensual. And when we didn't, we would always be depressed. I just love the meditative, spiritual quality of cooking. But if anyone tries to get into the kitchen with me, I'll kick their butt."'


'Gyllenhaal concedes it's easier on his competitive relationship with his sister now that she is becoming a star. "I feel like we're becoming a kind of a force now. We were taking over the Toronto Film Festival. That was our fascist intention." It certainly didn't start that way. Gyllenhaal recalls when his parents put him and his sister in one of their movies as kids, and Jake's scenes were cut. That, we opine, should have been enough to keep him in therapy for at least 15 years. "It has."'


I have a sudden hankering for cranberry juice. Piecrust lips?


Excerpts from Newsday (September 2002), pdf available on request as always. Photographs thanks to IHJ.