New pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal and Dastan, other PoPsters speak, Colter Stevens, Jake's drunken tennis player cameo...

Yesterday's New York Times video in which stars described their favourite movie moments of the decade is today followed by a magnificent gallery of actors who have contributed key performances to cinema over the last year - and there amongst them is Jake Gyllenhaal in studded leather and moody black and white. I believe that Tobey Maguire is next to him but I'm having trouble dragging my eyes that far left. It's well worth looking through the other photographs. Many thanks to IHJ for the heads up!


And speaking of the video from yesterday, some of you may have experienced the same troubles as me watching it, so try this instead.



These are glorious PoP days and here are more new images from the film. At the risk of sounding like a parrot stuck in a groove - stunning. To accompany them, here are some excerpts from other articles in April's Total Film. In addition to the main PoP feature on Jake Gyllenhaal, there are also interviews with his co-stars the feisty Gemma Arterton and the sultry Toby Kebbell.


On Gemma: 'Cascading tresses also feature prominently in Jerry Bruckheimer's sand-blasted videogame adaptation Prince of Persia, in which Arterton's Princess Tamina is paired opposite Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince Dastan. Their squabbling, banterish relationship is, says Arterton, 'like Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing.' Contrasting her two blockbuster heroines, Arterton describes Tamina as 'a lot more fesity, a lot more comic than Io. She's funny and it's a full-on action role. I have to do loads of fighting, although there wasn't a particular style to my fighting because it's quite wild - she's not been trained. But I did stage combat at drama school so I had quite a bit of experience. I shoud have been a stuntwoman...'


On Toby: 'In Prince of Persia Kebbell plays Prince Garsiv, head of the Persian Army and rival of Jake Gyllenhaal's Dastan. 'He hates Jake Gyllenhaal's character because Dastan is more skilled than he is. Garsiv is battle-hardened in a different way. he has great skill in fighting and great education of war but he ends up being a dunce because he's so aggressive,' says Kebbell. Shooting took place in Morocco over three and a half months in temperatures of around 50 degrees centigrade. 'I was in a leather cape and 18 kilos of armour with a battle guard underneath and my sword belt, which made my armour 23 kilos. Then there was the helmet with chain mail down the back of my neck with a wig underneath, my plaited hair, my beard. It was unventilated.'


'Fighting with axes, horse riding, 'drinking three a half litres of water and not having a piss all day' - all part of being in a Jerry Bruckheimer franchise starter. And these weren't even the toughest things he had to get to grips with. 'Save the empire, the sword is still strong' says Kebbell, slowly, deliberately, concentrating hard, frowning slightly. 'Save the empire, the sword is still strong', man! I lost a lot of sleep thinking how on earth am I going to say that line?' Still he loved the experience. 'To work on that was genuinely spectacular,' he enthuses. 'If they do a sequel, I'm in, absolutely. I'm dying to, in fact.'


IGN has been publishing some of its interviews with other PoP stars from its visit to the Pinewood set last year, including Sir Ben Kingsley: 'I really liked the character. Because of my years in Shakespeare, I really enjoy mining into the character, digging into the character to find out why he is what he is. How he became. So in my portrayal of the uncle, Nizam, I was able -- very happily and enjoyably with Mike Newell -- to go into the script and speculate, 'I see why he is this way. I see why his behavior is that way. I see how he's motivated and what drives him.' So Mike Newell, being the lovely director he is, turned a plot-driven piece into a character-driven piece. It was very, very appealing to me and then it becomes, honestly, like any other film that one is enjoying making. You didn't feel the crushing weight of franchise, of Jerry Bruckheimer who really let us go, let us get on with it. We just got on with the job of telling a straight story with Mike Newell. It became a character-driven piece, which was tremendously enjoyable for me.'


Gemma reveals that Tamina is a high priestess: 'It's a real full-on action role, although she's a high priestess so she's not your typical kind of gun-wielding [heroine]. She's very spiritual, so it's an interesting take to have someone that's action-driven but that has got religious beliefs. It's an interesting character.'

There is also a new interview with Jordan Mechner, the creator of the Prince of Persia - or PoP's pop, as he is called here.


Prince of Persia: Sands of Time will first premiere at ShoWest, a movie trade event in Las Vegas. PoP will show to some of the industry's most influential figures on 18 March. I think it may be fair to declare, then, that PoP is finished.

And that is the PoP update... but there is much more going on than PoP!

Source Code

Jake has revealed a few words about his next role 'that "'Source Code' is a kind of sci-fi thriller based in different time continuums. I play Colter Stevens and he's a helicopter pilot who finds himself in a very unlikely and disoriented situation."' The buzz builds...


We heard yesterday about Jeffrey Wright joining the cast of Source Code. Stand up comedian Russell Peters is also attached, demonstrated by his explanation for the cancellation of his March gigs: 'The reason for the re-scheduling is that Russell has landed a role in the Sci-fi action movie, Source Code. The film is set to be directed by Duncan Jones (Moon) and star Jake Gyllenhaal (Jarhead), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) and Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye). Originally scheduled to start shooting after the Australian tour, Russell's shoot dates were moved-up when the producers decided to expand his role in the film with additional scenes and dialogue. Russell must now report to set on February 23rd until the end of March.'


Jake's other video cameo career...

Tomorrow night on Channel 4, Vampire Weekend premiere the video of their new single Giving Up the Gun on Rude Tube at 23:50. This will give Jake chance to continue his other job of music video star cameo artiste. The band has been discussing the shoot (in Hollywood) and how Jake was already a fan of their music before he got the call. We also get an idea of Jake's role and I can't wait to see it!


'I certainly can’t speak for everybody, but Joe Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal were through connections of mine. I was making calls saying, “Hey, I want to get some people to come down and be in this video!” One of my friends was like, “Oh, I was just with Jake and he was listening to the new Vampire Weekend record.” The next thing you know, there he is. I don’t think he even knew what he was doing, but he absolutely slayed it and was a lot of fun to work with. He did a great job in the video and brought a lot to it, which was fantastic.... We lit shit on fire. We had RZA presiding over the tennis match. Lil Jon came down to give some tennis tips. Jake Gyllenhaal drank himself out of the competition; Joe Jonas tried, but did not succeed. There was a lot of rigorous competition, pyrotechnics, and a little bit of milk to cap it all off.'


Includes pictures from links and IHJ.