End of Watch makes Anna Kendrick blush and Jake Gyllenhaal puts his life in Michael Pena's hands

Jake Gyllenhaal  is managing to avoid the cameras, despite having been spotted on planes, trains and automobiles - well, in airports (presumably travelling to and from Toronto for preparations for filming An Enemy) and on NYC subways.

Last night, though, Jake managed to escape public transport long enough to attend the launch party of a new cognac, D'ussé, at the Top of the Standard Hotel in New York. Also there was Jay-Z, making this the third time in recent days that Jake has attended an event with Jay-Z. It certainly seems very probable that Jake and Jay-Z are planning to collaborate on a project, whether this is a song for End of Watch or, who knows?, another music video is yet to be revealed. Unfortunately, Jake was in stealth mode and said no to cameras.

The release of the first trailer for End of Watch continues to attract attention. Anna Kendrick has been talking to E! about the intimacy of working with Jake on such a film where the boundaries between reality an fiction were blurred.

"We were shooting [End of Watch] on tiny cameras with very little lighting and a very small crew. There was a lot of improv," Kendrick said. "It felt incredibly intimate. You're in character all the time because you're shooting all the time. So Jake and I would be holding hands and suddenly we'd be like, 'Oh, we're not filming.'" Ask her just how steamy things got with Jakey and Kendrick begins to giggle. "Oh, my goodness—I'm actually blushing," she said. "Yeah, it gets all sexy time with us."

On Tuesday, David Ayer, the director of End of Watch, was interviewed for the New York Times about his film which 'aims to transcend clichés that have piled up over the years, he explained, by portraying a pair of local patrol officers, played by Mr. Gyllenhaal and Mr. Peña, who are not crazed or corrupt. Instead they bring fierce mutual loyalty and an unexpected sweetness to their pursuit of goodness in a bad world.'

This is a fascinating glimpse into the fast and furious filming of End of Watch, including Jake's experience learning to use a firearm with live ammunition:

'In an unusual exercise with live ammunition, the actors learned to shoot past each other in what proved to be a lesson less in police tactics than in bonding. “This guy has my life in his hands for real,” Mr. Gyllenhaal recalled thinking. “I realized, I finally knew what we were dealing with.” (Mr. Ayer said the actors were “safe all the time” during the exercise at a training ground in Burbank.)'

A relief to hear that Michael Pena (and Jake) is a good shot!

Thanks to IHJ for their trailer caps!