[Updated] Jake Gyllenhaal's WonderCon triumph! And Source Code will 'blow your mind!'

No time for eating Easter Eggs or biting the heads off cute little chocolate bunnies this Easter Sunday, no way! And all because Jake Gyllenhaal has been doing what he does so well - taking centrestage to talk with charm and passion for his new movie while flirting the socks off the very receptive audience. 'We love you Jake!' cried some. 'I love you guys!' Jake replied. And with a beaming and proud Jerry Bruckheimer, Mike Newell and Jordan Mechner looking on, you could see brilliantly well why Jake Gyllenhaal was the perfect choice for Dastan, Prince of Persia.


Even though most of us are, unfortunately, a long way away from the streets of San Francisco, we're fortunate in that we can share in the excitement of WonderCon on Saturday 3 April thanks to a number of good people, including our Intrepid Roving Reporter! I'm glad to say that not only did she survive seeing Jake 'delicious' Gyllenhaal in person yesterday, she was also able to record some of the Prince of Persia panel - no mean feat I can tell you:



The Roving Reporter reports: 'I was worried I wouldn't get in (they have very strict Fire Marshall rules on capacity) - it was also almost pitch black and they were showing a preview of a new TV show. Couldn't find any seats so hung along a side wall with a bunch of other folk. Lights came up and they started a Q & A with the TV show folk. Moved further down near the front and managed to snag an end seat. As you'll see, I was quite far from the stage but they had two huge screens either side and I was right in front of one. Lots of signs and we were also told no video, photos etc. but nobody took a blind bit of notice and it wasn't enforced at all - I think they were more concerned about the bit of exclusive PoP being recorded rather than the rest of it.'


'Jerry and Mike were this first two out and they spoke about the film and Jake (boy, do they ever LOVE our boy!) They also mentioned that Jake was backstage...that's when I sent the I'm here message. They then showed the first clip which was almost ALL Jake - lights came up and then Jordan and Jake came on - The audience went mad, clapping, cheering and quite a few fangirls shouting out "I love you Jake", etc. and he says "I love you guys too"

To set the scene, here are some of her pictures from the event. How much do I want to look round those stalls...?




We're also lucky that friends HeyUGuys made the trip over from the UK and recorded videos of the press conference and the panel. They also made my evening with an exchange of emails which made me feel a part of it, so thanks to them! Here are their videos.




We have three more little clips from the panel here:





So... what have we learned! From the press conference we hear from Jake 'Now I wish that I was British as I feel that I'm proficient enough with the British accent' and 'Occasionally I would throw out the British accent at the dinner table'. Jake was, however, surrounded by so many British accents that the accent could move around England's counties a fair bit, until pulled back by Mike Newell, whose accent Jake clearly enjoys!


The press conference and the panel demonstrates that as Jake grew in confidence, and when the trainers were more confident with Jake's abilities to hurl himself around, the stunts and fights got more 'dicey'.

The panel witnessed a classic question (there was one word in it which I couldn't quite catch and so I was glad of Uli's help with the translation): 'I wanted to know how difficult it was getting into shape and getting all tanned because you started off like Bubble Boy, all adorable and bubbly and now you're like Unghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!' Jake: 'It was so much fun. What can you do when you get paid to get tanned, get in shape...' The questioner again: 'You're pretty, I just thought you should know that.'


There were some classic Jakisms that we have come to love and expect. 'I keep the dagger of time and will use it if this press conference has any weird questions.' 'We worked very closely with a guy named David Belle who invented Parkour. It took a long time to find him cos he has no email address or phone number. So we went over the streets of France in a helicopter looking for people jumping off of buildings and we snagged him and brought him over to Morocco.' Dastan 'also likes to jump off of things. He also likes to fight with his fist and with his sword and he also likes princesses.'


'That's how I trained for the movie too - it was just me and a baggy pair of pyjamas.'

We wanted 'to see if we can run over that donkey and then we would or we wouldn't successfully run over a donkey. No! Not like that! I didn't mean it like that!'

On working with Jerry Bruckheimer: 'It was a little louder, a little bigger, and a little more fun'.


After the panel, it was time for the WonderCon cocktail party... And a look at what everyone in San Francisco wanted to get their hands on yesterday (and the iPad's not bad either).



But it wasn't all Prince of Persia, Jake also took some time out to talk about Love and Other Drugs briefly ('which is awesome and I'm very proud of it') and Source Code: 'I'm shooting a movie right now with a guy named Duncan Jones who directed the movie Moon with Sam Rockwell, which is an amazing movie. We're having an amazing time and that movie, a scifi movie, will blow your mind.' The video is below.



Many thanks to everyone who brought us all into WonderCon with them and thanks to IHJ for the superb photographs (there are many, many more to enjoy there) and to the Intrepid Roving Reporter for sharing her adventure with us! Thanks too to HeyUGuys for the videos and pictures. I don't now about you, but I'm ready to see this film right now!

Happy Easter! PS - I'm not ruling out any updates... Talking of which:

Update: Another little video clip from the press conference:



And here, Jerry discusses the question of whether to use 3D or not...

Here is an interview with Jordan Mechner.