Jake Gyllenhaal and his leading ladies Gemma and Anne - He's real, he's not afraid

** Check out the side of the front page for Jake on the Box! -> **

Do check out the earlier post today for Jake Gyllenhaal, DJ and Hannah Montana fan.


It can't be easy acting as Jake Gyllenhaal's co-star in a big summer movie - not only are you expected to kiss him and hang on to his bicep as he pulls you onto his trusty stallion, you're also expected to spell his name (I would have thought 'Jake' was quite easy to spell, but what do I know?) and answer questions on him in a 'How well do you know your co-star?' quiz). Admittedly, Jake had to undergo the same trial about Gemma Arterton. See who wins here:



There is another video at Moviefone, and in that one Jake and Gemma talk about working together and Gemma reveals that she didn't even know Jake was the Prince until after she got the part. 'Brilliant!' she says.



In a great new interview with Toronto's Star, Jake owns up to feeling happier than ever: '"I admit it,” he agrees enthusiastically. “I feel totally upbeat these days. I’ve learned something important in the last few years and that’s how to have fun. Both in my life and in my work... I don’t know what it is, man,” he admits with his usual candour. “Maybe it’s getting through my 20s, maybe it’s all the stuff that’s gone down around me, but I’ve learned to listen to the rhythm of the world and try and have a lot more fun with my life.”


'“I loved movies like the Indiana Jones series,” he recalls with obvious excitement in his voice. “What kid didn’t aspire to be like Indie in those movies? The secret was always that he just managed to get out of impossible situations at the very, very last moment and that’s what made them so exciting. When they asked me to do the Prince of Persia, I asked Jerry if there would be scenes like that and he promised lots of them. And he didn’t let me down.”'

'“But, I tell you, I have never been in as great shape in my life as I was for the Prince of Persia... I had to study sword-fighting, martial arts, acrobatics and, of course parkour.” He’s referring to the system that the French call l’art du déplacement, where the subject is taught to do seemingly gravity-defying feats by learning to overcome all obstacles in his path. There’s a real sense of mind power behind that,” admits Gyllenhaal “and it really got me in the right space to play the role.”'


'“I was scared of the accent,” he admits, “but not as scared as I was of the ostriches.” He’s alluding to a bevy of the long-necked beasties that he had to share an uncomfortable desert scene with. “Don’t ask me why, but they freaked my head.”'

'“No matter what happened to my career, if all of this went away tomorrow, my family would still be here and that’s all that matters.” That’s why one comment he received at the Los Angeles premiere this past week really delighted him. “My aunt called me up after and said, ‘Oh Jake, I’m so happy! This is the first movie you’ve ever made that your cousins can go see.’”'


Jake also lists his five favourite action heroes: 'HARRISON FORD – “Indiana Jones was it for me when I was a kid and I’ve never changed my mind. I think that’s the best movie hero acting ever." ERROL FLYNN – “If you’re talking old school, he knew how to do it the best. And I always loved the fun he had with it.” VAL KILMER – “In Willow, I thought he did the most amazing work. He acquired size and stature and made you respect him.” WILL SMITH – “He’s the man, in everything he does. That’s what a hero should walk like, talk like, act like. He always delivers the goods.” JEFF GOLDBLUM – “He usually plays a villain or freak, but in Independence Day, he was a hero and I guess because it was so unexpected, it made it all the more powerful.”'

The inclusion of Val Kilmer in Willow really does show how much Jake, like us all, is a product of his times. Jake's talked about Willow before - it clearly left an impression. Read more at the Star.


Talking of Willow... it pops up again in another interview, this time in one Jake conducted with ESPN - but first we have some sportstalk: 'I'm really, really torn, but I think the Los Angeles Lakers will beat the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. There, I said it... I grew up in Los Angeles and my best friends are from Boston and I lived there, too. You know how many texts my friends are sending me asking about my pick? But Los Angeles is where my heart is. Thank you for allowing me to straighten this out!'

'My movie harkens back to the old days of 'Indiana Jones' and even 'Willow,'... I'm chomping at the bit for people to see it. I know you want to open strong but we want longevity.'

'Yeah, it's such a difficult job, getting paid to get into shape... I'm an active person, but I was forced to eat mostly protein and steamed vegetables. For a treat I'd get a Snickers bar. I was so craving it. I would have torn someone's head literally off if they didn't give me my candy bar!' That's worth remembering...


Another interview today is courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel:

'“You’ve got to get across the danger, flirt with potentially getting hurt, actually hurt,” he says from London. “Viewers will accept nothing less. When you come right up to the cutting edge with the violence of the fight, you run risks. But anything less than me not risking losing a finger or an eye is just ‘weak sauce.’”' He chuckles at the British expression he’s just trotted out.'

I have to interject here. I am a Brit and never in all my days have I heard someone say 'weak sauce' - I wonder if someone was filling Jake's head while having a few jars one night. I digress...


'“Swordfight training, parkour training, working in a gym with acrobats and the actual inventors of parkour, David Belle and his team. You need to do that before you get chased across the roofs of Kasbahs in Morocco. It’s not just getting it down. You have to be in good shape so that you can do it take after take after take, in that heat, sweating to death. The sweating to death actually works. You WANT to look like you’re sweating to death.”' [while looking hot - not everyone can do that...]

'“I’d see something on the game and suggest the stunt guys take a look at it, and they’d go, ‘Yeah. We can do that.’ Climbing that wall on crossbow darts? We actually did that. They shot those into the wall and we used them as a ladder to get to the top. No wires, no big special effects. Just bolts from a crossbow and stepping from one to the next.”'


A man after my own heart (I know I hide this well), Jake has a thing or to to say about the movies forced on him as a child: 'with the sort of stuck up movie tastes that my dad and mom had, that maybe my sister shared, I was all about popcorn movies. Indiana Jones, The Goonies, E.T. Those are the movies I loved, no matter what my parents said. If you were to tell the eight-year-old me back then that today I’d be playing the Prince of Persia, jumping off buildings, sword fighting and getting the girl, my head would have exploded... It’s pretty badass.' More here.

Thanks very much to IHJ for grabbing the appearance of Prince of Persia on MTV's 10. I like this video in particular because we see Jake and Gemma interviewed side by side - I'd like to see more of that. And Gemma praises Jake's accent - I wonder if she's the one responsible for teaching him 'weak sauce'.



Jake has been praising Maggie's Brit accent as better than his: 'It didn't come easily. I worked very hard at it and was worried because I can't tell you how much I respect the British accent, and how much I know the British respect the accent. I recognise it for all the wonderful qualities and politeness that is the British culture. I know they can be touchy on that, too, and it was a challenge. It was something that had stopped me from doing other roles in the past because I didn't know if I could pull it off.' Brits touchy?? Who told you that?! I do beg your pardon for getting a wee het up there.

Remember those days, those long summer days of 2007, when we heard barely a peep out of Jake? Or much of 2008 and 2009 when films were delayed and publicity was slight? Well May 2010 is certainly making up for it! In fact, lets have another interview.


Jake Gyllenhaal graces the pages of the June US edition of Elle (no doubt we'll get yet more Russell Bloody Crowe). This interview actually takes us out of PoP and throws us into the future world of Source Code and Love and Other Drugs, demonstrating that when we're sitting back and enjoying our 3-Disc Director's Cut All Singing and Dancing Prince of Persia DVD, there are more delights in store! Back to this interview - I like the opening. I always enjoy these lyrical descriptions of Jake's beauty, as if others are discovering what we've known for years.


'What to make of Jake? The absurdly large hazel eyes and square-jawed visage across the table in a café in the Old Montreal historic district suggest a younger Clooney or Hamm in their masculine pulchritude.' To impress his competitive family: '“I was the sprinter,” Jake says. “I had 100 meters to get what I needed to get in, so I was more of a ham, a class clown, and I continue to be, I suspect.”'

'“I don’t want to waste time having an exchange with someone where it’s just one-sided,” he says (to me, I’m pretty sure), as we sit down to breakfast, “ ’cause I’ve done that and it makes me feel like shit. I like to know a little bit about the person I’m sitting across from, ’cause I might walk out the door and get hit by a car. Or you may.”' Blimey.


'“That’s a real guy you had breakfast with,” Anne Hathaway says afterward. “A lot of actors only know how to be real when the camera is rolling, but Jake is unbelievably warm and open and welcoming. There’s no mistake why he’s so charming on-screen.” She should know, although in Brokeback, Gyllenhaal’s character couldn’t dance around Hathaway fast enough to wrestle with Heath Ledger in the high pines. (While Ledger and costar Michelle Williams were beginning a passionate affair, “Jake and I were geeking out over The Simpsons.”) But in Love and Other Drugs, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway take the on-screen chemistry in a distinctly hetero direction.'


'“I lured her to do the movie by telling her that [Brokeback] wasn’t our love story, this one should be,” he says in an admission of tactical charm. He’s a Big Pharma drug rep, she’s an artist in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, and they fall in love in a no-holds-barred sort of way, exposing at least as much flesh as Gyllenhaal did in his near-naked dance in the Gulf War sufferfest Jarhead. “We’re going to learn the hard, dirty, rough parts of ourselves and share them at the same time,” is how he describes their dramatic approach. “Jake invites vulnerability,” Hathaway says. “He’s not afraid of that.”'


What a great interview and what a great next film Love and Other Drugs will be for us all.

Many thanks to IHJ for the fab pics!