It seems hard to believe now, after seeing this trailer, that James Cameron almost selected Jake for the lead in Avatar but Cameron had this to say of Jake and his competitors '"I didn't think they were tough enough for what I wanted them to do. [I kept thinking] 'Where are the men? Show me the men.'' That man turned out to be Sam Worthington.
Other directors, of course, have been just as keen to work with Jake as he may have been to work with them. Robert Altman, for instance, was one of these and Jake was at one point or another associated with two of Altman's projects. '...the young Hollywood star he most wants to rope into his new feature, "Hands on a Hard Body," filming in September, is Jake Gyllenhaal. The name of the movie may sound tantalizing, but cool your jets, "Brokeback" fans. The flick is about folks keeping their hands on a car to try to win it in a shopping mall contest. Altman told us he has been in talks with Jake but hasn't gotten a final answer from him yet.' That project sounded... curious.
The Widow Claire was another on. 'Written by Horton Foote, [it] is set against the backdrop of World War II. [Winona] Ryder stars as a young widow with two children who is caught between the affections of two men -- a sweet young soldier about to go to war and the town's most sought-after playboy. Jake Gyllenhaal and Matthew McConaughey have met with Altman about possibly starring opposite Ryder in "Claire." Robert Levy is producing the project.' Now which would have played the 'sweet young soldier'?
Nigel Coles, the director of Calender Girls, had wanted Jake and Alison Lohman to star in his A Lot Like Love. Alison had been in another of the casts of This is Our Youth in London and she also featured with Jake in Teen Vogue in December of 2003. The director of This Is Our Youth, Laurence Boswell, had hoped to launch his new theatre company with Jake as Romeo. Boswell listed Jake as one of his favourite actors and he enthused about working with Hollywood actors:
'Treat them like anybody else. You have to be aware with some people that they may be putting themselves under a lot of pressure because they have a huge reputation, and being exposed on a stage can be a quite anxious thing. You have to relax them. If they don't have a lot of stage experience, you've also got to find a way of teaching within the process of directing. The real trick is just to get on with the job because that's what gives people confidence. Americans are no strangers to work. Their approach is: get in, let's do it, let's work. That's great.'
How I would have liked to have seen Jake as Romeo. Here is some more information and initial doubt that it would happen after all: 'To that end, Variety has recently reported that, for the project, Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers would be reset in modern Manhattan and given a rock-n-roll backing track. The US industry newspaper also tipped Hollywood's Lynn Collins to play Juliet to Gyllenhaal's Romeo in a co-production between Boswell and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, with seasons in Chicago and possibly New York after London. However, today's edition of the Daily Mail suggests the project may not be quite so straightforward, or immediate. Gyllenhaal, who's currently filming the screen version of Proof in London (See The Goss, 20 Oct 2003), told columnist Baz Bamigboye that, although he wants to work with Boswell again and they have indeed been talking about R & J, "we may do another play in London before we get to the Shakespeare".'
I need to see this again...
Includes pictures from IHJ.
