Jake 'the lone poor cat' Gyllenhaal: 'It's just the beginning'

We're very lucky to have more accounts today of Jake Gyllenhaal's glorious return to the public stage in NYC on Saturday night. I particularly enjoyed this opening to an account of the evening by Nathaniel Rogers: 'He’d be unrecognizable but for those enormous blue eyes. In fact, when Jake Gyllenhaal walked out on stage at the SVA Theater in Chelsea on Saturday night, a full bushy beard covering what seemed like all of his face, film critic David Denby didn’t even introduce him by name. “I don’t know who this guy is,” Denby joked. “He looked a little lost, so we invited him in.”' With thanks to Nathaniel for the heads up (with the promise of more to come tomorrow), you can read his full account here.


A couple of extracts: '"[Maggie] would always boss me around,” Jake said, recalling their childhood. Maggie was always the star, Jake an extra. “I did everything wrong according to her. I was always banished in the corner. She’d put on Cats and I’d be the lone poor cat, sipping milk in the corner. Les Mis—when she put that on, I was just like a poor person in a corner. It’s never changed. It's still like that,” He added laughing.'


'Jake often admitted that he was still learning as an actor. “The character is built through a lot of mistakes for me. I like to go in and be really bad and somehow I find myself. It's found through overacting and bad acting, really. I have to act it first. I have to make all the mistakes first.”'

Jake explained his connection with Anne Hathaway: '“I had already had movie sex with her.” Jake explained, citing his marriage to Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain. Zwick clearly felt he had captured lightning in a bottle by reteaming them. “Each of them at this very moment is coming into the heights of their craft and power. That can't be described.” He believes that their musicality also helped their partnership. “Rhythm and music is so important to comedy—and sex!—And they both have that.” “And they both have enormous eyes.” Denby interjected. “That’s important for sex too!” Jake joked.' Read more at Tribeca Film.


Some sites have placed emphasis on other movie confessions of Jake's, while People focused on the age thing - the approach of the Big 3-0. '"Look guys, I'm not 30 yet!" Gyllenhaal cracked at Saturday's New Yorker Festival in Manhattan. "Can you cut it with the 30 comments?"... [But] I feel more like myself. I feel like now, it's just the beginning," he says. "I guess you get to a point at 30 or somewhere and you say, 'What I am, is what I am and that's what I'm going to be and that's all good. I don't need to be anything else.' And that's kind of how I feel."'


And that is indeed the realisation that many people come to at that age and it is the reason why being 30 is such a fabulous thing to be. Obviously, I don't know yet and I'll let you know when I reach that milestone... ahem.

People also picked up some words of Jake's on his relationship with Maggie: '"I love her a lot,"... but "we don't go around looking for something to work on together. I would rather spend time with my niece and spend time as brother and sister." Not that the door is completely closed. "It would take something that I love so much … that I would need her to be a part of, and vice versa," he says.'


Pumped Up PoP

Simon Waterson, Jake's trainer for PoP has become a bit of a legend around here, with more than a few dedicated posts. To mark the DVD release, Men's Health has released Jake's full training regime and it's as horrendously horrible as one would expect. 'We had to build a functional, strong and agile physique capable of dealing with a huge workload and stresses'.

As an example, here's a Dastan exercise you can do while washing the dishes: 'Deep squats with power jump: Holding a plate above your head, do a wide squat (with your feet a few inches wider than shoulder width, toes pointing slightly outwards) getting your rear as close to the floor as possible. Then jump at least 10 inches off the floor. As soon as your feet return to the ground go straight into the next squat.' I feel better already.


Includes pictures from IHJ and JJ.