Jake Gyllenhaal - the UN of sports. Jake on ESPN radio and taking a leap of faith

While Jake Gyllenhaal has been out and about publicising Prince of Persia he has also been a source of interest to America's sports commentators because of his West/East split personality when it comes to that mysterious world of basketball - known in the USA as 'NBA'. Jake was a guest on ESPN Radio and again he faced questions on his Jekyll/Hyde Lakers/Celtics split personality - Jake concluded that he was the UN of sports. There was also talk of Damn Yankees and Joe Namath (or Mr Namath, as Jake refers to him). You can listen to the broadcast here.


In another interview released today, you can see Jake and Gemma Arterton (known to ESPN as 'Gemma who?') talk about their roles and relationship in PoP. gemma talks about the frission between herself and Jake and talks about what a funny guy Jake is.



IF Magazine has published an interview with Jake which is well worth a read: '"There were a lot of movies that I read, and there were movies that I was offered that I really liked, but it was all about the character for me,” admits Gyllenhaal. “I chose the movie because the character was about the relationship between Princess Tamina and Prince Dastan and about family. But ultimately, [Dastan] was wry and did cool stuff and always had a great thing to say that wasn't too ‘winky winky’ at the audience. He felt like this classic kind of character.”


“Jerry would comment while I was working out and say ‘nope, bigger biceps please,’” Gyllenhaal says with a smile. “And I was like ‘yes’ and ‘no problem... When I got the role I started to play [it again] for an extended time and there were moments on set when I would be like just ‘seriously wait a second,’” recalls Gyllenhaal.'


'“In the ‘sand room’ we had a green slide that was basically plywood,” says Gyllenhaal. “That was hugely high and at the very bottom of it was a pad with three stuntmen around it. And I was sliding down this green thing, and it was fast, so I had to do it fast. And it was so much fun. There was no safety on either side. So if you slid off, you would just slide off and just fall. I don't know if there were even pads there. There was one stunt my first jump, that was like a 35-foot jump and I was really pretending I wasn't nervous about it and I was going to be all good with it, but I was pretty terrified about it. It's in the trailer of the movie. I've run and then I basically just jump and I looked over 100 times and I remember saying ‘screw it I have to trust these guys and do it’ and I did it.'


'But things like that happened every day as we were coming up with new ideas. I would look at the video game, and I would say ‘what about this’ and they would incorporate it and then all of a sudden I would be up on the wire for two hours. There was another thing that we found somewhere, where out of the middle of nowhere, we thought that I should dive on this guy from above and I did it three times. And I looked at it on playback, and it doesn't even look like a human being falling from the air. It was so weird.”'


'“I usually make choices based on filmmakers and definitely story, but no matter how good the story is if you don't have faith in a filmmaker, it's hard to deliver and give your heart,” says Gyllenhaal. “And Ang Lee was like a no-brainer and I can say it, because I lived it, whether it's a totally obscure movie about two sheepherders who end up falling in love in Wyoming or whether a movie like this – it's the people involved that give you the confidence to do hopefully your best work. That's how I feel.”'


Pictures from Disney.