The Prince of Persia Bonanza - Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton talk about stunts and making it real

If I have learnt one thing during the last few months it's that you can never have enough featurettes for a Jake Gyllenhaal movie. Call me old-fashioned but if, in the run up to a film's release, I don't see Jake in at least one new video taster a week, I'm not happy. I feel there is a subliminal message here for Ed Zwick and Duncan Jones: avoid the Brothers route and take the turning for Prince of Persia. Douglas Freeman had his thing for piecharts; I feel the same way about Jake Gyllenhaal featurettes. It's a good thing, then, that today we have two and a half. First off is a Disney Channel Exclusive Look.



I'm sure that I'm not the only one to have noticed Jake's rapid jumper exchange during the course of this video.



We then have the third video from those rather frightening Movie Surfers. For some reason unbeknowest to us all they focus on Tamina but there is also more Jake and, in both of these videos, we have soundbites of Gyllenhaal Britspeak. At one point, Jake says 'terribly' - you don't get much more authentically Brit than that.



The third video is a sneak peek at a feature still to come on the Disney Channel.



Throughout these features we hear pride from both Jake and Gemma Arterton for how they did many of their own stunts. We've talked before here about how Jake has mentioned his vertigo or his nervousness around horses, but all that was conquered for PoP. HeyUGuys today published an interview with George Aguilar, the stunt co-ordinator for Prince of Persia. He says 'There have been some pretty big leaps that Jake and the doubles have done. Even though they are on a cable they are still pretty tricky. There’s also a lot of working with animals, horse work, camels, all sorts of things. Both Jake and Gemma and the whole cast worked on the riding. We had a couple of horses run loose which is always tricky.' And for Parkour 'Jake started training a few months before shooting began and he has worked real hard on it.'


George describes his favourite scene: 'I like the one where Dastan is running down an alley. There’s a man on a horse about to spear him. He runs up one wall and then back down, up another wall and takes the man off the horse. They then proceed to have a nice friendly sword fight. You have to incorporate everything in there. The fighting ability, the horse riding and the Parkour all comes in one scene. It’s not that long on screen but it took three to four days to film and lots of rehearsal time.'


The movie is for the family but it was filmed with real intent: 'Most sword fighting movies are a little proper and pretty. This is more physical and when someone gets hit, he really gets hit. And when someone gets stabbed, he is getting killed. You’re not stabbing someone six times and he still gets up and walks away. It’s not that kind of movie. When you swing a sword, you’re swinging to kill. It is all about intent and Jake is doing very well with that. We do use blood. We do practical and visual effects. But I don’t know how much you’ll see in the end, it depends what rating the film is given. I think there will be negotiations about that.'


I've said this before, but it bears repeating. We Gyllenhaalics have had nothing like this before - past films have been largely directed at adults and so this level of exposure is a novelty. I could almost say that the publicity for Prince of Persia feels like a holiday. It doesn't detract from the time around it but it gives us a chance to experience something quite special. One can hardly begin to speculate what Jake feels about all this. It's a thrilling ride and I hope he hangs on and enjoys every moment of it.


Tomorrow is a day of interviews for Jake and the PoP crew in London so there is plenty more to come! I saw a tweet that said Jake would appear on the Jimmy Kimmell Show on 20 May - hopefully one of many chat shows.

Many thanks to IHJ!