Another featurette about that 'nice little sandy package' PoP and Jake Gyllenhaal in February's Empire - 'I've always wanted to do this'

The holidays are over! I've found a reason why this makes me happy - the Jake Gyllenhaal floodgates have reopened! This weekend the Disney Channel gave us a Sneak Peek into the Prince of Persia. Thanks to Stephanie at IHJ we can all see it today. The film clips are familiar but there's a new brief interview and the behind the scenes glimpses are also new.



Jake talks a little about this 'nice little sandy package': 'My favourite movies are always a mix of everything. There's lots of action and there's cool characters and stunts.'




Jake talks some more about Prince of Persia in the February edition of Empire (scans below). I like how the contents page describes this as an onset visit with Jake Gyllenhaal who 'got stuck with being Prince of Persia after Tobey Maguire bagged the considerably more coveted starring role in Jet Set Willy'.

And the feature itself. 'Forget New Moon, Prince of Persia features real Jake-abs. 'How did I get so big? Let's get straight to the important questions!' Gyllenhaal laughs. 'Six months of a lot of really functional training. It's not really about getting bigger or stronger. It wasn't about sitting in a gym trying to look good. In order to be a warrior fighting in all these scenes and to actually fight with these people and have legitimate fun in the movie, it required six months of pretty heavy training, as if I were fighting, as if I were jumping up and down and grabbing things. I mean, it was really fun stuff.''


''I'd come off a lot of films that were very character-driven and I had exercised all those muscles... It was time to try something else... It's so much fun to just run around and fight... It's like what I always dreamed of doing when I thought about being an actor as a little kid. And then I made all these movies where I was like...' He pauses and rephrases. 'I mean, I like all the stories I made, but I've always wanted to do this. It's a legitimate epic movie!''


'Like Dastan, Jarhead's Anthony Swofford also laboured in the Persian Gulf. 'Yeah, felt that too, when I was sitting there in the desert thinking, 'How the fuck did I end up here again?!' It is interesting. But it's a question you're going to have to ask my unconscious!''. And then there are the similarities with time traveller Donnie. ''That sometimes passes through my my mind. I've made other films that have been about time travel... My unconscious led me back to the fucking desert, and it's all about fucking going back in time!' But there's no giant, demonic rabbits in Prince of Persia, right? Gyllenhaal laughs. 'Just wait til reshoots!''


It's interesting how Empire chose an old picture for its feature, and yet what a picture it is. This post also includes pictures taken at LAX yesterday evening (3 January) and a supercool shot from the set of Blame It, thanks again to IHJ. Scans by WDW.