Prince of Persia opens in the UK - Jake Gyllenhaal records Jimmy Kimmel, presents cake - & so many new interviews!

Prince of Persia opens today in the UK! If you're on these shores do go and see it - the perfect way to cool off from the hot sun - and you are assured of a treat. You may even get PoPcorn.



If posts were sea creatures, this one would be a Blue Whale, so I advise you to put your feet up, grab a cool beer out of the fridge and have plenty of snacks to hand. Jake Gyllenhaal recorded Jimmy Kimmel yesterday (before he heads off to a week of NYC and Canadian shows), providing the perfect pictures with which to illustrate the post - with thanks as always to the incomparable IHJ!


First off I must put a big yellow highlighter through the Jake Gyllenhaal interview conducted by our friends at HeyUGuys, who asked some interesting questions - not least about Jake's relationship with Paul Newman ('who did wonderful things for the human race') and Jamie Lee Curtis. Not to mention (although I am) the matter of whether Jake would like to direct in the future: 'I would, I’m almost 30 and I think it’s becoming less presumptuous of me to think I could. I would like to write and direct.' This is worth another look...



Among the new videos - and there are a few in this post - this one stands out from Access Hollywood, not least because it teaches us a little bit of how Brit culture is seen on the other side of the pond. [Please follow that link as the video has flash issues when I embed it.]


First off, most London pubs are English pubs; secondly, as Jake points out, where's the beer?; thirdly, those tables are too clean; fourthly, you don't pick up the peas, you let them land on the floor to get squashed into the bottom of your shoes along with the discarded chips; fifthly, the peas shouldn't roll as they should be mashed. But great to see Jake in a pub! Mine's a pint...




Last night, Jake rather obligingly stopped by an all-female audience screening of Prince of Persia in LA to gift cake and loveliness. Fortunately, it was all captured on video. According to People: '"The crowd went crazy when Jake entered," a source says, adding that the ladies sitting next to him seemed especially starstruck. Gyllenhaal thanked the fans for their support, then joked about a certain movie (starring Sarah Jessica Parker) that's opening the same weekend. "This," Gyllenhaal told his admirers as he pointed to his body, "is the real Sex and the City!"' Too right!



Jake also found time to recoup with some sunrays by a hotel pool, allowing his ubiquitous chest to breath unfettered.



Many thanks to IHJ for not only capturing Jake on MTV last night (a great series of snippets of interviews, including one about Parkour hand injuries -ugh) but also another Disney Movie Surfers featurette. This one includes those scary teens having a go at their own Parkour. Serious R rated stuff.




Jake Gyllenhaal is featured in today's Mirror newspaper. Once you get over the horrendous and completely uninspired and cheap review on the other side of the page, it is, nevertheless, good to read such a thoughtful interview. You can read it all online here, and I've scanned it below, but here are a couple of pieces that I liked the most.


"I've always been very athletic and I loved being able to train hard and work on my physique," he says. "You see your body transforming and feel yourself becoming the character. I also wanted to be in the kind of shape where I felt confident doing as much of the stunt work as possible. It would have been impossible to make this movie without my being able to the stunts. Luckily, I managed to pull that off without getting too badly hurt. I had a few injuries - mainly pulled shoulders and a twisted ankle. The worst thing that happened on set was when I accidently hit another actor in the face during a fight sequence. I felt terrible."'

'"Movies can be a very intense process and sometimes there are going to be confrontations depending on the circumstances," says Jake. "I know most people talk about what happened on Jarhead, and even though Peter and I didn't speak for a few weeks after one really bad argument, we became even better friends afterwards. Which is good, since he's married to my sister Maggie! The film was a very tough shoot about guys who are being trained to kill in the Gulf War. We were all going a little out of our minds on that set which probably elevated our performances to where they needed to be for the film. With Peter, we were doing a scene where he gets slammed to the ground by me and some other guys. We did several takes and Peter was getting hurt. At one point we both just exploded. But a lot of it was just tension building up on the set and I was probably overdoing it in terms of playing my character."'


'"Heath and I had different ways of working," he explains. "I was trying to apply things I had seen other actors do - like where you interrupt the other actor to change the dynamic of the scene. Heath got pretty irritated with me and we had some arguments about that. Then we found a way of working together that was much more comfortable. Maybe I helped him in some way - but now, of course, it's impossible to know."'

'"Soccer is my other obsession in life," he grins, "and I'm looking forward to going to South Africa and watching some matches. I think the American team is very strong and we can do well."' Hopefully Jake won't mind, then, that David Beckham crept into this page from this week's New magazine.


Time to get back to what's on everyone's mind... Jake's body. According to an interview at Skip.at and reproduced here: '“Of course I worked out a lot! But we always had to make sure not to overdo it. Jerry kept popping into the gym to check our muscles weren’t getting too big, because he didn’t want us to look too massive on screen. He said, ‘Always remember – no huge biceps!’ "For a whole month I did a lot of climbing and sword fighting.”'

'Jake insists Jerry was a constant inspiration on set and has even made him consider becoming a movie producer himself...“Seeing Jerry producing this film I just thought, ‘I want to do this as well!’ He knows how to make the most complicated things look easy. And I love films more than anything – so it’s only logical for me to work behind the camera as well.”' Interesting.

There is another huge interview at Wonderwall - this one's so big, you'll want to take time with it. And it's a sidescroller too - how fitting. A few bits and pieces: 'I think when I read the script, it made me think of or reminded me of when I first watched "Indiana Jones." I remember watching "Willow" when I was kid. I just stopped and thought, "Hey now. I've never really made a movie when I haven't taken myself so seriously and enjoyed myself and got to play a character and kick some butt," and, you know, light things on fire and run across walls and have a good time doing it. So I just remember the first sequence of the movie that I read, which is the first scene in the movie, this sequence where we climb up the wall and they're shooting arrows in the air and I just remember thinking how fun that seems and I thought, "I want to try my hand at that."'


'I don't know if I believe in redos. 'Cause I definitely do believe the lessons you learn in life, you are meant to keep them with you. But probably go back to the little kid who was playing the first "Prince Of Persia" video game, little me, when it first came out on the first Mac computer. I would go to him and whisper in his ear, "Guess what? In 20 or some odd years you are going to be acting in the lead of the Jerry Bruckheimer version of this video game. It's kinda like 'Indiana Jones.''' And you know, I'd love to see him go like, "Oh, who are you? Go away you're creepy." No, I'd just love to see him be psyched about that.'

[On a battle between Dastan and Iron Man] 'Oh, wow. You know what? I'm biased in two ways. One, Robert Downey Jr. is a close friend of mine and I think Iron Man is pretty badass. So I would definitely give them an even tie in different ways. So that's my boy there. So I can't really say one way or the other.'


And more on those little ostrich blighters: 'I definitely have my ostrich issues. But slowly, as I talk it out with the press, I'm really getting over it. I think I'll slowly friend Alfred Molina's character in the movie, and maybe I'll even give 'em a smooch one day and feel comfortable about it. So I'm really working through it and its going well...There's nothing like a big beautiful pair of eyes.'

'You know, I've gotta say the most difficult part of this film was buckling the swash. Swashbuckling isn't so easy. In order to buckle the swash it takes a pretty proficient swashbuckler. So bucking the swash every day was pretty difficult. That was probably the most difficult. I mean you really gotta buckle, like if you're gonna buckle it, you swashily buck the swash. You gotta own it in order to swash buckle.'

'And the boots, you know the boots that I wore were specially designed. In fact I hear that the cast of "Sex and the City" were trying to get themselves a pair.' [Thanks to BBMISwear for the People page.]


'I think it’s wonderful being an uncle. I mean, my niece is incredible and she's, like, constantly positive little truth teller. I love her. I adore her. I would do anything for her. So, you know, it's nice to be her uncle, and I try to see her as much as possible. And I go out of my way to do that. Since she‘s the next generation of little Gyllenhooligans. Even though she's a Sarsgaard. But she's half of us, so, you know.' Read more at Wonderwall.

And lest we forget that there are more goodies on the way, Jake spoke a little to MovieWeb about Source Code. 'The story is really complicated to explain but essentially it deals with different time realities and the issue of one person getting stuck in different time continuums. Ultimately it's kind of like the way The Usual Suspects works, everything kind of comes together in this immaculately perfect way at the end that kind of blows your mind.'


'Working with Duncan was extraordinary. I think he is the next generation of director... He is like an incredible talent and I hope to make many more movies with him because he is amazing. It is true that he is from great artistic stock but he's his own thing and was an incredible collaborator, as well as an incredible leader. I can't say enough nice things about him. I feel like I'm totally kissing his ass, which I am but I loved working with him. I think he is going to make a sick, sick movie. I think we've made an incredible film.'

And on that note, I think I'll stop for this evening and pick up again later! Have a great weekend and thanks to IHJ! Other pics from links and WDW scans. Phew!