Update: Fan question 4! Hassansins! Jake Gyllenhaal in GamePro and GQ, Nailed is now The Nail, Source Code, Duncan Jones' shirts...

Update: It's Thursday and so we have another fan question! In this one Jake talks about Parkour and watching it on YouTube!


In what has just been declared International Jake Gyllenhaal Week - a week that will be forever commemorated with public holidays, festivals, rose names and street parties with bunting (expect one day to be driving around in a Dastan) - it comes as no surprise that WDW is bursting to the seams once more. Today has been extra busy because research for the post has been competing for time with buying Prince of Persia shirtless and feathered lego.


First off, we have a new Prince of Persia featurette, which focuses on the baddies - the Hassansins. Or, as Mike Newell calls them, the Hassaaansins. Or, as Jake Gyllenhaal, calls them, the Hassansiiiins. Or, as everyone else calls them, the Baddies. And, from this featurette, we can see that they are indeed bad - with slithering snakes and knives up their sleeves. Almost like the dragons in How to Train Your Dragon, these Hassansins can kill a man in countless excruciating ways. But Dastan is no ordinary man...



Lest we forget, Prince of Persia is based on a fine and much loved game. It's therefore not surprising that interest for the movie is high in the gaming world. The May issue of GamePro features a full article on the Prince of Persia game and movie franchise and includes snippets of interviews with Jake Gyllenhaal. It also provides fascinating facts, such as 1,114,894 bottles of water were drunk on set and that snakes and scorpions were moved out from set each and every day (rather like seeking out endangered newts on British archaeological digs before the first scrape of the mechanical digger - sort of, but not quite). We have scans of this article thanks to our very own Intrepid WonderCon Roving Reporter!



Was Jake able to master the game?: 'From your GamePro point of view, no!.... From my point of view, I mean, I'm an actor, so, yeah, I was fantastic. But seriously, I was pretty, pretty good, but I'm definitely not as good as any gamers out there who were practically born with the controller in their hands.'



Sequel? 'I'd be honored to if that was a possibility that became an opportunity... It was nice to have the challenge of being a part of something that I know and a lot of gamers are critical of when it comes to translating a game to a movie. Gamers have high expectations for the Prince of Persia movie because it's such a treasured franchise. And we definitely didn't take that lightly.'



Jake Gyllenhaal put everything into his portrayal of Prince Dastan, so much so it made him spotty: 'I started playing [the game] incessantly throughout the filming of it, when I finally took the role and I would use it as reference - almost as research for the part, like I would look at something the prince would do in the game and I'd say like 'Can we do this? Can we pull this off in the movie?' and I'd bring the stunt guys in and we'd like look at the move and then we'd try it and then I'd end up hanging off a wire for like four hours and I'd get a really, really bad rash. But it was worth it - the rash was worth it.' You can listen to this here.

The interviews from WonderCon keep on coming, reminding me how much I've been missing Jake since the wonderful days of May 2007 and Cannes. Like then, we now have interview after interview, full of wit, fun, confidence and joy for the project. Without doubt, Jake is enjoying being the centre of a great deal of attention and his spectacular debut at WonderCon has seduced bloggers and writers across the board. There are two more interviews today. The first is from Quint at Aintitcool, a fun column to visit at any time, and there are some GyllenGems.


We learn that Jake is an Alfred Molina fan, that he's proud of Brothers and that - wait for it - Nailed has a new name! The Nail. While this name isn't much different from the older name, this is significant. It means it's being discussed and it means it's moved on enough to being called something new. This interview is later than the other one in which Jake reflected on Nailed's woes and so hope again emerges... (no doubt to be dashed again in another week). 'I did BROTHERS and then right after BROTHERS I did this movie with David O. Russell which has yet to come out, but that’s its own beast. David is incredible, but it was like BROTHERS, NAILED or THE NAIL I think we are calling it now, and then it was PRINCE OF PERSIA and then from PRINCE OF PERSIA I did this movie with Ed Zwick and now I’m doing this with Duncan...'


There is more about Source Code and its predecessor Moon and the director Duncan Jones: 'Quint: I saw Gertie in person. Jake Gyllenhaal: Nice. Quint: I love Duncan. He’s very cool. Jake Gyllenhaal: Duncan is so awesome and he is an extraordinary director. Working with him has been that exactly and I think this movie that we are making is mind boggling.'


On Source Code: 'No, we are shooting in Montreal. We are shooting the coolest shit right now, man. I can’t even tell you... I’m telling you man, [Duncan] is really quite something. His mind… He comes from quite a pedigree, just artistically, but on his own I believe he is the next generation. He is blowing my mind on a daily basis. Quint: What’s interesting with him is he is kind of like the quiet Quentin Tarantino, where it’s like he has such amazing film knowledge. Like when I went to MOON he was wearing the most badass CLOCKWORK ORANGE t-shirt I’ve ever seen. I’m like, “Wow, I know I like you already.” Jake Gyllenhaal: He has collector’s edition t-shirts on like every day and people come up and they are like “Dude, where’d you get that shirt?” I’m “It’s just a shirt, I have no idea.” [Laughs]'


'To me, working with him… It’s surprising, his instinct, his sense of collaboration, but at the same time truly being an auteur… I don’t know man, it’s nice, because I feel like I’ve talked to a lot of journalists who have really responded to his movie and know that and I knew that when I saw it and I think people… Everyone I’ve been like “Have you seen MOON?” They’re always like “Everyone says it’s so good, I need to see it.” He’s the real deal man. Anyone who has seen it knows that and this… you are really going to like it!'


Working on Prince of Persia: 'I would be on one unit and they’d be like “Okay, we are done. We need you to come over to this unit.” I would be like “When’s lunch?” They’d be like “Well, you know we started on second…” and I’d be like “Wait a second, I started on first unit, my lunch should be now!” [Laughing] They were like “Well, second unit started at this time, so lunch is at 3.” I’m like “I started at 6!” And then go over to special effects. It was funny, because it’s like tag team, like I would finish with Mike and then I would move over to second unit and then there’d be like a guy who looked like me doing stuff and I’d be like “Alright, tag you out. It’s my turn now.” They’d be like “Okay, we’ve got Jake, time for close ups. Time for that thing. We are going to do this and…” “Okay, tag you out” and “Special effects needs you.” I would go over there and I’d take off all of my clothes and they’d scan me and I’d put my clothes back on and go over to second unit again.'

'I’d take off all of my clothes and they’d scan me' - this line bears repeating at least once. I could be a scanner... We also hear Dustin Hoffman gave Jake a zimmerframe. Invaluable. This is a great interview so do check out Aintitcool for the rest and for his verdict on Jake.


Wired interviewed Jake, as well as Jordan Mechner, Mike Newell and Jerry Bruckheimer, in a San Francisco hotel before the grand WonderCon event. In it, Jake describes why he likes Dastan: 'What I liked about him is that he had this attitude in the game... Not that he was a complainer, but he never really liked to fall. It was always a pain in the ass for him. If he got cut, he’d be like, ‘Argh, God!’ The fact that he put that spin on it: ‘Really? You just cut my fuckin’ arm off?’ I like that attitude. Eye-rolling when something doesn’t go your way, but not in an obnoxious way.'

'In the games, you have the prince fighting with the woman, and you have this natural sense of romance... Both are always abrasive with each other, which is in the movie. That tit-for-tat, she’s-a-bad-ass-and-he-can’t-deal-with-it, that sexual tension is the same.'


Again Jake talks about trying out stunts and ending up hanging around as a result: 'When I was in the middle of shooting at lunchtime, I’d play that game, figure out the moves that he could do and try to incorporate them into the stunts that we were doing,” he says. “I would bring the stunt guys into the trailer and be like, ‘Can we do this? Can we pull this off?’ And they’d be like, ‘Yeah, we could try it.’ And then like a week-and-a-half later, I’d be up on a harness, and be like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ And they’d be like, ‘You asked, man!’... Whenever there wasn’t a wire, they were very worried... Not that I wouldn’t make it, but the landing is scary.'

'“I didn’t want him to get hurt,” Bruckheimer says. “You have an actor who is very physical and does a terrific job, but he’s still got to come back to work the next day. A stuntman, unfortunately, if he gets hurt, you can put another one in there. But you can’t replace Jake.”' Indeed you can't. There is more at Wired.


We have had more Source Code updates thanks to the invaluable tweeting of Duncan Jones. We learned that it's the second unit that has been filming in Chicago this week, while he and the first unit finish off 'shooting in our highly surreal "Pod" sets!' Duncan describes them in a way that no human can comprehend: 'Sets are so bizarre... like Geiger had a baby with Escher, and then fooled around with Picasso in his randy cubist period!' And after lunch: 'Right! Back to set for our last half day of shooting in the seriously weird-arse surreal set! Hoooya!' There's more: 'I also have to say that Jake G is funny as hell, and Russell Peters had his hands full trying to keep up with Jake's on set improvs.' You can read Duncan's tweets on (not surprisingly) Twitter and also get regular updates on the ManMadeMovies blog.

Today, we also got a glorious technicolour first look at Jake's May cover for GQ! I don't know what it is about GQ, they always seem to put Jake in pale suits. But Jake looks simply stunning. And how I long to hear what he has to say.


And now, for any Brits reading, it's almost time for Brokeback Mountain on Film4 this evening (9pm).

Includes scans from WDW, pictures from IHJ, Movie Surfers, Disney and links. Many thanks to the Intrepid Reporter and to you all for your patience!