Jake Gyllenhaal in London, Part 2, and a couple of extraordinary interviews

Jake Gyllenhaal has now left these shores -  leaving behind a country seduced by one of the most impressive beards to appear on the nation's chat shows in recent times. At the moment, one can just speculate whether Jake will be returning to Europe shortly for other End of Watch release dates but even though it was brief, the visit was a great success.

In addition to the Graham Norton Show and the Radio 1 Breakfast Show (see below), Jake also appeared on Channel 4's T4 show on Saturday morning talking to Jameela. Let us hope that video of this appears. An interview with Jake was also broadcast on the XFM Breakfast Show with Danny Wallace. Hopefully, you can listen to that here.

A brief recap of some of the other most significant appearances (ie, the ones we have a record of).

From overseas comes the news that End of Watch will be re-released in the US this month - surely a sign that the Oscar buzz is increasing in volume.

Meanwhile, this week Hitfix has published a wonderful interview with Jake in which he looks back over a career working with some extraordinary directors. This is just the sort of stuff I want to hear and Jake does not disappoint. Do read it, it's full an revealing. I was intrigued to hear Jake say this, for instance, about Sam Mendes 'he was the best acting director and coach that I've ever worked with. The things I learned about acting from him I've taken with me everywhere I've gone.'

There is much more about Ang Lee, David Fincher, David O'Russell, Jim Sheridan and Ed Zwick, as well as David Ayer. I wonder how many other directors Jake will work with during his long career that will also be called David...

In Hitfix's other full interview with Jake, David Ayer also reveals a little about why Jake was so keen to take on the End of Watch role - and that he was actually sick of his life. Clearly, here was another of those roles, as with Jarhead, that he fought for and he needed: 'Gyllenhaal was looking for something new in his life and, according to Ayer, chased the project down. "I think he was just frustrated," Ayer said by telephone. "He wanted to act. He wanted to just sink his teeth into a role and act and not be distracted by the sort of big business side of things. He wanted to lose himself and he wanted to be reinvented…He's just like, 'Look, I'm sick of everything. I'm sick of my life and I want to change it. I want change.' And that's all I heard, is that he's ready to transform. His heart was really open at that time and he was really receptive to doing something totally different and giving me the total commitment that I needed for this movie to work…I told him, 'Look, if this works out, you're going to come out of this a different person.' And I think that happened."'

The photo is from Jake's BAFTA End of Watch Screening on Friday evening (thanks to IHJ).