More interviews with Duncan Jones: Jake Gyllenhaal is 'ridiclously handsome' and a 'bit nutty'

Hot on the heels of the weekend's interview with Duncan Jones (see yesterday's post), today we have a couple more, following on from a visit to the Source Code editing bay by a number of movie sites. They were not only able to chat with Duncan Jones (who displayed his typical openness and generosity), but see ten minutes of Source Code itself. Collidor has posted a video of the interview, which you can see below, as well as a link allowing you to download it as an audio. There is also a new photo from the cramped, train set of Duncan Jones with his two stars, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan.


You can read all the interview there, but I've pulled out a couple of snippets, including this praise from Duncan for Jake: 'Jake was a huge draw to me because I’m a big fan of his. I think he’s a terrific actor. Also ridiculously handsome in a very hetero way, but he’s a good looking guy, and he’s a leading man, you know. He’s a leading guy and I wanted to sort of work with him. I thought it would be really exciting.'

And on comparisons with Groundhog Day: 'Although there is more comedy in this than you might expect. There’s more humor in it. [laughs] But there’s also Jake, who is a funny guy. If you ask him to sort of let loose and be himself, he is a bit nutty in a really fun way. So rather than let the film get too dark, which was always a concern when we were, again, looking at the script, I wanted to make sure that we could bring the levity to it. Because I think it helps drama. I think drama is more effective when there’s levity there as well. You get that dichotomy.'



'And I think in this film what we wanted to do was my moments of visual…well, my visual ideas where I wanted to fit them into the film, they had to feel right for telling the story. And I think the stunts that we have or the special effects that we have all serve the purpose of getting you into Colter Stevens, who’s our lead character, into his head and his experience of what’s going on in the film. I think if you look at Inception, Inception’s a good example of where as amazing as the stunts in the special effects are, when you’re actually watching the film, they make sense. They’re appropriate to what’s going on during the film. And I think that’s where I was trying to steer us, although Inception hadn’t come out when we were making it. So…[laughs]'

Plus some good news for Jake: 'You know, I wasn’t able to take the number of takes that maybe a Fincher or someone would want to do.'


'The shooting schedule was not hugely much longer than Moon. So I mean it was not as much time as…I hope in the future I’ll get more days to shoot, but there was something we were having to fit into. I think at the time Jake was doing the press for Prince of Persia, so we had to fit in within his availability and getting him out in order to do the Prince of Persia press. So there was not much room to extend beyond that.'


'And with Jake it was sort of similar [to working with Sam Rockwell on Moon]. When we met and I got on so well with him…and I know that he was really interested in working with some different kinds of directors. I mean he had just come off of Prince of Persia. I think it was a very different experience than what he had on Source Code. And I think the two of us kind of bonded and knew that we could have a lot of fun. I could kind of open things up to him to allow him to experiment and to try things that maybe he wouldn’t get to try on other films. I think that relationship between us was really built on trust and the fact that we wanted to work together.'


It's fascinating listening to Duncan talk about his love of Twitter and his appreciation there for everyone there who has built up a tweeting relationship with him. So for a test audience for Source Code: 'I was hoping that I could just invite people from Twitter. That would be fine. I could do that. [laughs] I could fill up a…' Yes, please!

These are just teeny snippets from a wonderful long interview - do read it all here.


Another interview from the edit visit was published by Coming Soon today. There is, I'm pleased to say, more about Jake: 'In this case, I had a meeting with Jake [Gyllenhaal] about six months to a year before all this started. He had loved "Moon" and was interested in working with me and brought "Source Code" to me. He had it sent to me and I found it really fascinating. I loved the idea of working with him and it kind of just took off from there. As far as that as a theme, it's certainly nothing conscious. It's just something that I think, deep down, intrigues me and was there when I started making the film. But I guess there is a return to the unreliability of who people think they are.'


Jake adnd Duncan worked together on introducing some levity into the plot: 'That was one of the things that Jake and I were talking about right from the beginning. This could either go very dark or we could try to elevate it and bring some humor into it as much as possible. Jake's performance throughout this is very interesting. When we sort of realized that there was a humor to this whole event that we could bring into it. I get it. Some people don't really think of "Moon" as being that humorous, but I do. I actually find quite a lot of humor in that film. I think in this one as well, there's a lot of humor that comes out, sometimes at inappropriate times. That makes it even funnier to me.'

Read the rest here.


And finally...

I'm packing my bucket and spade this evening as I get ready for a few days' holiday in Wales. Castles, sea, hills, rivers, real ale and secondhand bookshops - all await. I'll do my best to post when I can and you can expect some off piste pictures. The trip will include a visit to my favourite castles, in fact one of my favourite places, Carreg Cennan. Please pray for sun!


Pictures from links and IHJ.