Jake Gyllenhaal 'worked his heart out' - A look back at WonderWeek (and another WDW interlude)

It's been quite a week. After several years of focusing on movies with relatively serious or adult issues, we've not been used to the hoopla involved with the promotion of a huge summer blockbuster. But, if there was any doubt at all that Prince of Persia is going to be huge, it's been put to rest by the events of this week. Jake Gyllenhaal stunned and wowed the crowds and critics at WonderCon in San Francisco last weekend and we can still feel and enjoy the ripples. But this week has also demonstrated the breadth of Jake's movie choices - while we've celebrated PoP we've also listened to Jake enthuse over Source Code and working with director Duncan Jones. And we've even seen some Source Code filming. So I think a recap is in order of what has been WonderWeek.


First off, we have another interview in which Jake reveals that he researched for Prince of Persia by going back to 6th century Persia and living in a tent with Daniel Day Lewis. One gets the sense here that this was one of the final interviews of the day...



In this Reelzchannel set of interviews with Jake and the rest of the PoP WonderCon crew, Mike Newell has this praise for Jake: 'He worked 18 hours a day to make himself into an action here. And he rehearsed the fights, and he rehearsed the riding, and gymnastics and the wall-running and this, that and the other. He worked his heart out to make himself into a really satisfying action hero. And he did it.'



So... what did we get this week?

Jake told about.com that he couldn't help but slip into Prince of Persia Parkour mode on the Source Code set - much to the alarm of the SC crew.


Jake told Destructoid that if anyone pokes fun at his poster he'll 'kick your ass in a dark alley' and 'like it or hate it, it's pretty damn good.'

Hanging on a wire for hours while the crew tried to perfect gaming manoeuvres gave Jake a really bad rash but 'the rash was worth it' and Jake had to regularly take all of his clothes off for the special effects guys to scan him. Moving between the different units meant Jake ate less lunch than everyone else.

The English accent is now a dinner table party piece.


Jake channelled Buddha in his preparation for stunt scenes, meaning that his two years at Columbia still have a practical use.

We had two new PoP featurettes: Story and Hassansins and another fan question answered, this time on Parkour.



Jake loves his lego even though it looks like a buffed up Indiana Jones in a mullet.

Jake can't do the water section in the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time game and likes the prince's attitude when you accidentally cut his arm off or hurl him to a painful senseless death on spikes.

Zelda was 'super dope'.

They would still be filming Prince of Persia if it were to be in 3D.

Jake was told that he was 'unnnghhhhhhhhhhhh!' and pretty ('I just thought you should know that').

Jake got an iPad but Jordan Mechner doesn't want one.


Jake can happily talk about Top Gun for quite some time.

Nailed is now The Nail and Jake has finished all of his filming.

Jake can sing better than he dances.


Everyone marvels at Duncan Jones's collectors' t-shirts.

Jake called Ben Kingsley Sir Ben.

No-one says Hassansins like Mike Newell does.

Source Code got a day's work outing to Chicago (you can see some more pictures from that day here).


The plot of Source Code is extremely difficult to explain but 'it will blow your mind'.

Links for more and all of this can be found in the posts from the last amazing week and, as we've said here so many times this week, it's not even May yet!

Includes pictures from IHJ.

And finally - and so off topic it's ridiculous...

I went to Cotswold Wildlife Park today in search of lemurs - they were all asleep. In compensation, there were ostriches and scratching camels. I did try to avoid them, but there was no helping it - there were meerkats.

More Source Code pictures from Chicago and Jake Gyllenhaal on PoP: 'I did make this movie for kids' (and us) - and a WDW interlude

We have more pictures today of Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan from Friday's Source Code shoot in Millennium Park in Chicago, thanks to Before the Trailer.


We also, more worryingly, have the news that Michelle Monaghan ate artichokes in that windy city, a vegetable/fruit/mineral I wouldn't wish on anyone. 'Jake had French Onion Soup & Turkey Pastrami Club...and yes he ate the fries'. I know what soup and chips are, which is a lot more than I can say about a Turkey pastrami club. Chicago's chefs have also been having a barney about the best places in which Jake can find a hearty meal in the city. Each would conclude that it's in his restaurant.


There are more Twitter pictures from the locals lucky enought to see Jake in action on set yesterday, including this one, thanks to EmbersFall.


KABC published a WonderCon interview with Jake the other day - and at the end it promised another interview on their On the Red Carpet programme. Today we got it and it's another fine interview. Jake says that he made Prince of Persia for the kids - who will have had little experience of Jake's recent films - and show just how much he enjoyed the Parkour question from the young boy in the WonderCon panel audience. Jake also tells us about his PoP leaps, some with and some without a harness, and how he trusted the trainers completely. Glad to hear it.



And finally... a WDW interlude

Totally off topic but that's never stopped me... Today I took advantage of the first Spring weekend proper to head to the sea and then to Corfe Castle - where I managed to evade the scary horned sheep that chased me around the motte last time I was there. A day of clotted cream, scones, apple cake, ploughmans, real ale and cheese - not an artichoke in sight.



Includes pictures from links and WDW and Mr WDW.

Meet Coulter Stevens! Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan filming Source Code in Chicago

Today we get our first proper look at Jake Gyllenhaal as Coulter Stevens, his time travelling character in the SciFi Source Code, who has to relive a catastrophic explosion on a train over and over again. Here we see Jake with his co-star, the lovely Michelle Monaghan, filming in Millennium Park, Chicago, on 9 April, The briefest survey of Twitter shows what a stir this caused for those lucky enough to catch a glimpse. You can read more about Jake's take on Source Code in one of the interveiws in this post. Many thanks to IHJ for these wonderful photos - there are many more there.

This post will be updated later today when I'm back from the seaside!

Source Code moves to Chicago and Jake Gyllenhaal on PoP: 'Like it or hate it, it's pretty damn good'

It turns out that Jake Gyllenhaal is not spending the entire Source Code shoot in a 'pod' on a set that looks like it's the work of 'Picasso in his randy cubist period' (Duncan Jones tweets from yesterday). Jake does actually get outside and it's all for the benefit of Chicago and - more specifically the crowds of Millennium Park outside Bean, who have been flocking today to watch (as one witness called it) a 'pivotal 30 sec walking/talking scene they`ve shot 6x now'. Many thanks to Annaschabold and thornbridgekel for capturing some of that excitement of a Jake Gyllenhaal shoot. The pictures of Jake are distant but the excited tweets of seeing Jake just a few feet away suggests this is him.




I would just like to point out that Oxford is a hub of fine parks - some even have ducks in them - and they would be more than suitable for any Jake Gyllenhaal movie. Any. Even ones set in space.


So while Jake films a short walk and talk scenes a lot, we can take a look at two more interviews from WonderfulCon. In the first, with ABC, Jake draws attention to the interviewer having dressed down for the event - he was wearing no vest. Here we have the perfect example of a language gap the size of a sizeable ocean. It surprised me to hear Jake comment that NOT wearing underwear on top of one's clothes is considered dressing down.

However... 'I definitely had pressure but the pressure is exciting. As movies and stories get bigger and bigger - and this is the biggest film I've been in - it just gets more exciting too. I'm really excited. I'm really proud of the movie.' And Jerry Bruckheimer tells us that such events as WonderCon are all about 'touching the fans' and, with Prince of Persia, Disney most definitely succeeded. I know we've sometimes had due cause to complain about Jake's hair in movies, but check out Nic Cage!


The second interview is with the well-known gamers site Destructoid and here we have Jake approached from a whole different (and very funny) angle. Straight off the gamers ask Jake to defend himself at gamers who want to attack his PoP posters with pitchforks: 'I have nothing to say to any of you. Attack me as you will. But if I see you in a dark alley, I will kick your ass.'



He also decides that it's not the right moment to demonstrate backflips (a shame, I thought). And on being told that Dastan was a bit of a leap from Bubble Boy, Jake's response was swift: 'Wo, wo, wo, wo, wo [*insert a lot more wos*]! I'll cut your throat out.' The final verdict: 'Like it or hate it, it's pretty damn good.'



The interview also contains some amusing bits with the Sorcerer's Apprentice cast and director, showing that the gaming console world and the movie making world is getting closer as both vie for time on the Internet.

Talking of WondrousCon, here is a bit of a recap...



New posters for Prince of Persia have been released including a very cool poster with Ben Kingsley, or make that Sir Ben Kingsley. Over to Jake: 'He’s been knighted in England and I called him Sir Ben. He gets really competitive with the sword fight. It was great working with him.' The poster for Gemma Arterton is also a reminder that she is on the Jonathan Ross Show NEXT Friday (16 April) and not this Friday - due to flippin' golf.




Pictures from links. Thanks to the WDW reader for the interview links! Time to get that lego out...

Totally off topic, but I had to post this link for any fellow Trekkers out there.