Jake on a Train! Jake Gyllenhaal to film at Ottawa station for Source Code, Ben Kingsley and Beth Grant

Jake Gyllenhaal has been called many things - hot comes to mind - but today Jake earned a new title, Saviour of Train Stations, Ottawa train station to be precise. Source Code will be filmed at the station, while it continues to work, at the end of March. The Ottawa Citizen presents Jake on its cover and, reminding me of Pittsburgh and Santa Fe in the past, celebrates Hollywood moving into town. While I would like to point out to Duncan Jones that Oxford has a perfectly decent and extremely photogenic railway station - ideal, I'd say, Duncan - it's great to get some details. And there's more... could it be true that Ben Kingsley, Jake's Prince of Persia foe, is back for more?


We also learn that the movie has a budet of $35 million and will mostly film in Montreal, beginning in early March.

With thanks to Silver for the heads up, Brothers is on Film 2010 next Tuesday.

What Donnie Darko means to Beth Grant

Beth Grant has been reminiscing about her career including what would be a highpoint in anyone's acting life - Donnie Darko. Her memories of reading the script for the first time are compelling: 'I’m weeping thinking of Jake doing the part.' Jake, of course, had been a friend of Beth's daughters as a child. Over to Beth:

'I love that movie so much. Just before I got that script, I had been to see some European art film. I walked out of that movie and said to my husband, “That’s what I want to do! I want to do an art film and take it to the edge.” Within two weeks, we were getting ready to go on vacation, and my agent called. The first thing she said was, “You don’t want to do a play, do you? It’s by Horton Foote.” I said, “Horton Foote? Uh, yeah, I think I might be interested!” And she said, “Oh, it’s a world première.” And I said, “A world première of a Horton Foote play? I think I’d like to do that!” Then she said, “And there’s also this movie called Donnie Darko, and Jake Gyllenhaal’s going to be in it. They want to meet you tomorrow.” And I went, “Oh, there goes my vacation.” So I had a slight chip on my shoulder about taking it, but my husband said, “Look, you’ve gotta do this.”


I read the Horton Foote play first. Loved it. It was called The Day Emily Married; they later did it on Broadway. I had to play a 75-year-old with Alzheimer’s. Estelle Parsons played it on Broadway, which was great—I mean, she well should have. She was the right age, and I’m sure she was brilliant. I was just so honored to create the role. So anyway, it was probably 10 at night when I started to read Donnie Darko. I had first seen a line earlier in the day about animal feces, and I thought, “Oh no, this is some stupid teen movie where they think that’s funny.” So I was kind of putting off reading it, because I was expecting the worst. I get in bed and read the first page, and I go, “Hmmm. That’s interesting.” Second page, “Wow.” By the fourth page, my heart started to beat, and I knew. It makes me cry, because I knew I had found a classic film. You just know when you get certain material. I’m flippin’ those pages, flippin’ those pages, and then at the end, of course, there’s [Donnie’s] great decision.'


'Richard Kelly would kill me if I said it, but I feel—it’s just my interpretation — that it is this Christ myth, and [Donnie] does make this supreme decision, and it asks all the questions that are important in life: What is life? What is family? What is death? Where do we go after death? Is there time travel? Is everything happening at once and we’re just channeling? All those questions are there, like a great myth. And Richard wrote it in six weeks—it’s crazy! I feel like he just opened his channel and it poured in. He’d probably hate me for saying that, but I love him so much. I just did another movie that his company produced called Rogue’s Gallery that I’m very excited about it. It’s about the CIA kind of imploding the day before the inauguration, and there’s this elite killer squad in the CIA—well, I don’t want to give too much away. We did not base it on anything to do with Dick Cheney. It’s just a coincidence.'


'But back to Donnie Darko. It’s now 11:30 p.m., I’m weeping thinking of Jake doing the part, I can’t wait to meet the writer, and I have no one to call because it’s too late at night. I look around and realize I’m standing in the middle of my bed. I had actually stood up in an effort to try to express my enthusiasm for this thing. By the next morning, I was like a hurricane blowing into the room. I knew exactly how to do her, because she was like my P.E. teacher in junior high. I even wore this funny little pointy bra, because I remembered that was the way she dressed. [Producer] Sean McKittrick told me later that as soon as I walked in with all that energy, they knew they’d found Kitty Farmer. Which is kind of embarrassing, because I wasn’t quite in character yet, I didn’t think. Richard said he didn’t want her to be shticky—which is always such music to my ears, because there’s a fine line between taking it to the edge and going over the edge. He said, “I want to take it as far as it can without going over.” And I thought, “That’s exactly what I just ordered from the universe!” So I read the Sparkle Motion scene: “Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!” Except I got the words mixed up and said, “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to miracles in motion!” They laughed hysterically because I’d screwed it up, and I said, “You have to give me this part!”' Source.


Includes pictures from IHJ.