Jake Gyllenhaal: 'I'm a loud dude!' He also speaks a lot - so lots more videos and interviews!

While everyone's off in the theatres getting their first good look at the Prince of Persia (today was my fifth look and I've just about taken my eyes off Dastan enough to notice PoP's set in the desert), I thought I'd grab the opportunity to catch up a little bit. This also seems a good time to thank everyone for all the scans, pictures, videos and links that I've received over the last few weeks - thank you! - I realise I've not included everything yet, but I will. If you've not checked out Ted, Lisa and Jake's Amazing Adventure in the last post, please do! Without more ado, because Jake Gyllenhaal's been extremely busy of late, let's get on with the post. And what better way to start than with this...?



Jake was interviewed by Cinematical at WonderCon and the interview has just been released. It is fascinating. Just listen here to Jake divulging that being an actor takes work and hours of training and practice: 'I was at Sundance Writer's Lab many years ago, and I was just an actor there so you would go in and they would have first-time filmmakers who have their script and they would have mentors who would come in – like my year, Katherine Bigelow was there and Ed Harris was there and they have like an acting guru, and Delroy Lindo was the acting guru. You would go and act these scenes out for these first-time directors and they would film them and they would get advice from their mentors. Delroy Lindo sat us down because a lot of the actors were saying, wow, they were like 'put your hand here' and 'do this' and we were like, jeez, they've never directed anything before and they're telling us [what to do].'



'He said it's interesting with first-time filmmakers because if they've written it they'll say 'I've been sitting with this forever by myself; it's been 2D for this long' – and please don't read into the 2D, 3D thing I'm about to say – 'but then it gets up on its feet and it's living and breathing and coming out of someone else's mouth not the way you expected it to'. You always expected it this way and now it's this way, and it's hard not to feel because you have a sense of ownership to let something be created on its own because you've lived with it for so long.'



'So it's interesting because I've translated that now interacting with the gaming world and seeing how everybody has an intimate interaction with this character and this game and what it means to them, and now that it's basically become Jerry Bruckheimer's and he said 'now I'm going to try and put my idea of what a great, entertaining movie is' on it, people are going, 'wait a second!' So I understand that response, but I have always thought, I want to make those people happy. I want them to be psyched for this movie, so the bar has always been high, which is why when I was on set I would have the game on all of the time and I would come in the trailer and I would play a little bit. If there was a cool move, I would bring in the stunt guys and go, 'can we try this?' Because I would always think, we had a great story, but we've got to satisfy the way people see us, and there are many moves in the movie that came out of me playing the game and bringing the stunt guys in. So there was always that pressure.'

[Jake Gyllenhaal is interviewed in this 'odd' video below - eventually! Move those sands of time forward to around the 2:36 mark... and then there is a kind of French, kind of...]



'...When we were designing the wardrobe for the character, it was down to the last hour of shooting essentially, and I was like, 'I don't know if this buckle seems real,' and all of a sudden they would take to coat off and go running and they would have to run it up to there and back to this person and they would muck it up or take it off. You didn't realize what one little choice [impacted] – it had to be approved by this person and this person and 'was it like the video game?' 'No, it's not, but that's okay.' So that was definitely different for me, and to stay creative in an environment where there are so many people to appease.'



'But I really feel ultimately like my preparation was much different. I kind of tend to always start on a physical level; I always ask myself in what form would this character take shape, and how would he be successful in the world that he's inhabiting in a physical way. Like on Jarhead I did that, and on Brokeback our characters were smoking and we were riding horses and I just deteriorated, but on this I went, if he does parkour, because Gary said to me from the beginning he's going to do parkour, I'm going to have to learn how to do it, and then my body and my physicality just changed to do that. But it wasn't different.'



'Ben Kingsley is dramatically trained, traditionally trained, and a lot of British actors are, and as soon as I did the accent, it really did change everything. Because I recognized with a British accent that things become more ornate and humor becomes a different thing, so you don't have to do as much, and your voice translates so much more. I mean, look at me gesticulating right now; I wouldn't do that with a British accent, because you have to have the confidence of your voice. So I kept in my mind at all times that I was acting as if I was telling a child a story, which was so helpful for me. And then I would watch Ben, because there were moments at the beginning of this movie where I would walk around going, what movie am I in? What am I wearing and what is everybody else wearing?'



'But it became so fun and it became very theatrical, and actually I enjoy – it's funny when people say to me 'you're a very naturalistic actor' because I'm like, God, man, I'm loud! Ask anybody who hangs out with me, I'm a loud dude! So it played to that side...' Much more here.

This ABC interview is hysterical! I never thought flipcharts would sound funny... Thanks to a reader for the heads up. If the embedded video doesn't work, you can see it here, but I think I've fixed it...



This video, which I can't embed so just click here, takes us back to Jake filming at Pinewood - I do enjoy seeing Jake interviewed in full costume, now that I know the film. Now it's the American accent that sounds unfamiliar!


Director Mike Newell has been filling us in on some of the finer points of filming an epic in the desert with a huge number of hot and thirsty and sandy cast and crew. At last, along with lots of details about weather scouts, sandstorms and those 14 pesky ostriches, we hear more about Snake Dude.

At the beginning of the glorious PoP mayhem we had GQ - remember the excitement of Jake being seen at the centre of a large and growing crowd in Times Square? Here's a video that sets the scene.

Paparazzi-Jake Gyllenhaal in Times Square from photoframd on Vimeo.

Great review of PoP in Time Magazine today!

Scans by WDW, many thanks to BBMISwear for Elle and People€!