Love and Other Drugs will be out in UK on 31 Dec! The story behind the poster, Jake Gyllenhaal in NYC (on video) and Maggie and Peter dance in India

I recommend you pull up a comfy chair, pump up those cushions and pour yourself a glass of something warming because we've got a lot to get though and not much time to do it in (well, actually, we do have some time but I'm trying to build it up).

Firstly, some great news today for the Brits here: the release of Love and Other Drugs in the UK is confirmed as being 31 December 2010! I have to thank the powers that be for the perfect birthday pressie: Jake Gyllenhaal on the big screen. I like to think it was Jake's idea... Many thanks to our good friends over at Bleeding Cool for sending over the great news today.


The horrifying truth has been brought to my attention that the bald guy with Jake in the Foodie pictures is Chris! So Jake grows the Face Pet while Chris loses his - compromise, guys, compromise!

Le Grand Yummy

As we know, Jake Sasquatch Gyllenhaal was at the Big Foodie event in NYC towards the end of September. Not only was Jake captured on camera, he was also captured on a video camera. The Face Pet was out to grab attention. I don't know about you, but I can hardly notice it.



With thanks to IHJ for their scan from US Weekly we have some details about Jake's foody appearance - there's a lot to do with kissing a girl's cheek, snapping his fingers and dancing out of the door (instead of sampling food and wine and chatting with friends).


More details have also emerged of Jake's other appearances over the last couple of weeks, including the ballet appearance. But we hear much more about Jake's New Yorker appearance on 2 October from the NYMag, including this: 'According to Zwick, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway had been complaining about how often he'd forced them to do nude scenes. "I said, 'What do you want me to do?'" said Zwick. "And they said, 'You take your clothes off.' And I said, 'Fine!'" Said Gyllenhaal: “It’s weird how eager you were, too. He was like, ‘That’s it? No problem!’ And then it was off. It terrified me! Like, all of a sudden, this really intimate relationship became way, way weird.” Then, says Zwick, all three of them snapped a naked photo together. "The art director looked at it and said, 'Get rid of the director,' and he stripped me out and put Annie’s head on Jake’s shoulder, and that’s the movie poster."


You can read more details, which have been featured from other accounts here already, there, but this is new: 'His dream list of collaborators: Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Gosling, and Michelle Williams, again.' Interesting.


Recent sightings

You won't be surprised to hear that Jake has been seen yet again at the organically lovely Sun in Bloom, who tweeted: 'Jake Gyllenhaal stopped by for his 3rd&4th visits today @SunInBloom & says reuben special is his favorite. He Loves the #gluten free cookie!' Upon doing some research, I can inform you that the Reuben Special comprises: 'SIB's "corned" tempeh with a mountain of live sauerkraut and kitchen fresh Russian dressing dashed with a taste of dulse'. I am non the wiser.


Last night, Jake was seen in... wait for it... a restaurant, this time in Soho. Another New Yorker informed us : 'you missed Jake gyllenhall at the fish. And the directors guild at some other place. NY was weird tonight.' Thanks very much to the tweeter for letting me know this is a bar. But one thing's for sure - Jake Gyllenhaal is as hungry as ever. I blame the beard.

Maggie and Peter in India

Yesterday, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard helped to inaugurate the 40th SOS Children's Village in Alibaug, Mumbai. 'he village, set up by the non-governmental organisation SOS Children's Villages, will accommodate 140 orphans from the State. The Hollywood couple, who are the global brand ambassadors of SOS International, said they were glad to be associated with the cause of providing family-based care to the orphan children.'


You can see a video of the event here and it is truly wonderful - Maggie and Peter dancing and drumming, surrounded by children, all in the brightest of colours. Just fantastic to see.

Includes pictures from IHJ and The Hindu. Thanks to Karmentxu for the heads up on the foodie video. And thanks to Bleeding Cool!

More details on Love and Other Drugs and that 'deeply charming, flirtatious, funny, smart, sexy' Jake Gyllenhaal

It is an increasing pleasure to listen to Love and Other Drugs director and writer Ed Zwick talk about his new movie and in this video of a recent roundtable with Ed he tells us some more about what drew him to his leading man, Jake Gyllenhaal: 'Jake is a deeply charming, flirtatious, funny, smart, sexy guy and...' 'Agreed' [confirms the questioner to much laughter]. 'But I think in some sense he's held that back a little bit for some of the parts and has not demonstrated that.'


On the nudity: 'From the very beginning they really understood that that was in the DNA of the material. That in my experience when two young people get together and they're really involved and attracted to one another, they spend a lot of the time naked in bed. We wanted to give that the same level of authenticity as the drugs or the disease or anything else and to be coy and have the sheets pulled up I think would be a kind of violation of the truth and the authenticity of the relationship.'



Getting it done: 'We didn't have a lot of time. Everybody took a quarter of their salary to make this movie. We made it for $30 million. We shot in 49 days and so we had rehearsal and the rehearsal was very free and then once we shot it there wasn't a lot of time to mess around.

Shifting premieres

It had been thought that Love and Other Drugs would have its American premiere at the AFI Film Festival in November but, while that screening may well prove more glittery, it seems that the CMJ music and film festival has grabbed the premiere honour with its screening taking place in New York on 19 October.


Update: Meanwhile, the publicity machine for Love and Other Drugs may be heating up. Yesterday a stylist tweeted: 'On my way to a photo shoot with Jake Gyllenhaal!' Another very lucky person said: 'I'm totally standing next to Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhal and I am totally Freaking out.'

Jake at the BO

Jake meanwhile has made EW's list of the Top 50 Most Powerful Entertainers at 46. His Box Office total is quoted as being $1.4 billion, with his last three films making $405.1 million. The average weekend opening is $25.6 million and the average opening of the last three films $14.6 million. 'Viable leading men under 30 are hard to ind, but Gyllenhaal has crafted an enviable career consisting of global blockbusters Prlnce of Persia: The Sands of Time) and critical darlings (Brokeback Mountain).' Topping the list was Johnny Depp with Lady GaGa second and Oprah Winfrey third. There's more information here and thanks to BBMISwear for the scan.


Cranky in the mornings

I'm delighted to sat that there are more snippets from Saturday, this time about Jake and Maggie's big Oscar night. Apparently, Jake 'said he was in the middle of shooting a film but rushed to be by his sister's side when she was nominated for an Academy Award for "Crazy Heart" earlier this year. "Had I missed out on that moment that would have been awful," Gyllenhaal said. "I got no sleep and was a cranky person, but I was there and that was what mattered to me." He added, "Anyway, I love her a lot."' Jake cranky in the mornings? Something else we have in common... More here.


As for Jake himself, he took his Face Pet and a backpack and a date to New York City ballet's autumn gala on Thursday night. Tweets reported that he was not keen to be photographed, possibly because he didn't want to get done for breaking the dresscode. Natalie Portman was also there. Yesterday someone else said: 'I saw Jake Gyllenhaal at the coffee shop this morning. I smiled at him. He smiled at me. I have a feeling everything is going to be okay.' I know that feeling, it's a good one.


Includes pictures from IHJ, W and WDW.

Jake Gyllenhaal talks about Brokeback's Reunion, Heath, and what he learned from David Fincher and Donnie - plus Jake's on a Train and Zwick on LAOD

With big thanks to Nathaniel R, who did a great job of catching every word, we have more snippets from Jake Gyllenhaal's Saturday night out. This time, we have some of Jake's miscellaneous comments about past movies and there is some great stuff. You can read it all here, but here are some of my favourite bits, and there isn't one that didn't make me stop and think. Thanks to Nathaniel, who wanted WDW readers to see it, for the heads up! Before I start, I must say how much I agree with Nathaniel's comment that David Fincher was the star of Zodiac and that 'you can see his smudgy auteur fingerprints on every painstaking frame'.


On Donnie Darko: 'It really marks, more than any other movie I've ever done, figuratively a time in my life. And that movie -- before we started shooting, I had been having a rough time figuring out what was up, what end was up. Jason Schwartzman was supposed to play that part. They had financing, they were ready to go and he dropped out and I stumbled upon it and out of the director's desperation got the role. It really matched somehow somewhere where I was in my life. I remember it premiered at Sundance and my mother, father and sister came up to me afterwards crying and realizing that I had been saying something to them with that movie -- how lost I was. How did I do it? I don't know something about talking to that rabbit. It just seemed to comfort me at that time.'


Lost - watching, trying or not trying to understand Donnie Darko is something that has filled my last ten years and it brings this film home to me in a way I've not experienced before - just by hearing that Jake stumbled upon it and that it marked a time in his life. Comfort in speaking to the rabbit - I can understand a little of that too.

'When you think of cult films a lot of time's there's a bit of a wink. I don't think that was our intention at all. It's a deeply serious movie to me... Whether you're experimenting with drugs or not there's a moment where you go 'Whats real? What's not?' There was no thought of result. Any time I've ever done anything with the thought of a result its been a bad thing.'


In addition to talking about the difficulty of filming love scenes, for the first time in quite a while, Jake discusses Brokeback's reunion scene: 'It was about more than just kissing. The scene in Brokeback Mountain where Heath and I see each other after a very long time. This has been hard for me to explain for years. We had very little to do with that scene being as powerful as it is. It was powerful when you read it in the screenplay. It was powerful in the short story on the page. What we do when we had that moment together is filled with -- it's filled with moments that people have had that have nothing to do with us. We just basically went up and slammed our mouths together. You know what I mean? We were the instruments for something that was much bigger than both of us.'

Jake's performance in Brokeback: 'I think I do have regrets about it, about things, as every actor does. When I see Heath's work in that movie it's just transcendent and amazing and as a fellow actor to me I just always admire him. I hoped that I could be as good as. So I watch it and I always see that.'


In my opinion - and I am a completely biased and awestruck admirer of David Fincher - Zodiac was a vital step on Jake's acting journey, albeit not necessarily always a pleasant one. Although, having said that, since the filming days, David and Jake have never shown anything but affection for each other. In hindisght, Jake can see that Fincher knew what he could get from Jake and that is indeed what Fincher got. Firstly, Jake describes the scene where his character finally sees the man he believes to be the murderer: 'We shot that twice. David didn't like the first store we shot in. That was again multiple takes. The funny part of that is John Carol Lynch played by dad in Bubble Boy so that look is filled with so much more than just 'hunter and hunted.' I was desperate for you show a scene of me and him crying in a car and me in a bubble.'


One of the best scenes in Zodiac is the final cafe scene when Jake explains his theory to Mark Ruffalo's character. Since the first time I saw this movie I have admired Jake, who hasn't always had a good time learning lines, for this scene. 'That was the third time we shot the scene. We shot each of our takes close to 50 times. So... 150th take? Now I see what David wanted. I watch it and I'm like 'Now I know.' I didn't know what he wanted. What I've been learning -- this is what happens when you start when you're 15 years old -- no one is going to hold your hand and when you're 15 you need that. As I've gotten older and worked more and more I've realized how much I have to be prepared and there for the director so they think 'Jake's got my back I don't need to worry about him.' I think I had a misunderstanding for a long time -- because I grew up in a family off filmmakers -- that we're all supposed to collaborate. The truth is an actor is supposed to show up and do their job and know their job to a 't' 120% and be ready to go. Discover on the day but be ready to go. When I watch that I see myself learning.'


And that, for me, is one of the most marvellous things I have ever heard Jake say about his journey to be the actor he has become.

Read the full account here.


Another blogger has recalled watching the Q&A on Saturday: '[Jake] was completely charming, interested, and really smart. They talked about his mustache in Brokeback Mountain quite a bit, and Jake said that he actually won an award for that mustache. (No, seriously, an online award given out every year to best mustache). We found out that Jason Schwartzman, a close friend of Jake's, was originally supposed to play Donnie Darko. (WHAATTT?) He talked about sex a lot, and we discovered that there is a lot of nudity in his new movie - probably the best advertisement ever. It was over way to soon, and was completely surreal the whole time. He seems like a very cool guy who really doesn't comprehend how immensely talented he is. I wish I knew how to quit him. (How could I resist?)'.


Jake's on a Train

Last night Jake was seen and photographed on the 3 Train in NYC, which covers Manhattan and Brooklyn, and, for all the world, he looked like just another commuter, albeit an irresistibly hot one. Jake appears to have separated his movie and private self this year to an admirable degree and, while the glimpses such as this put the smile back on my face, it is good to know that Jake has achieved this.


Someone else tweeted today: 'Jake gyllenhaal's beard almost ran me over today on a LES sidewalk. A dude w/ porcelain face+thick beard is off.. like the guy on KnockedUp. But as we can see how Jake is making his way around the city, relatively left in peace, you can see how the Face Pet may be coming in handy. It almost makes me want him to keep it.... Until Love and Other Drugs comes out, of course.

To satisfy my own personal curiosity, can anyone tell me what 'a LES sidewalk' might be? It's all pavements over here...

Ed Zwick interviewed in Chicago

In this video, Ed Zwick makes an appearance in the Fox studio in his home town of Chicago and he has a lot to say about his funny and sexy stars. If the embedding below doesn't work for you, you can see it here.



Includes pictures from links and IHJ.

Jake Gyllenhaal on Brokeback 'I was not ever afraid' and Jake's admiration for Ryan Gosling

We've been talking here about some of the other roles that Jake Gyllenhaal may find for himself in the future apart from those he takes on in front of the cameras. But, in this newly discovered video, in which Jake accepts a Human Rights Campaign for 'Leadership in the Service to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community' for his work in Brokeback Mountain, Jake reveals with great emotion what he wants to achieve from his role as actor in these years. He also tells us with enormous conviction of his faith in Brokeback Mountain: 'I was not ever afraid'.



Jake tells us how proud he is of this award, and his family's earlier ACLU civil liberties award, and that he can't say enough 'how much I will earn this - because I haven't yet, but I will earn this over the years, I hope'. And how flattered he is that 'you've entrusted this with me in the hope that I will continue to do movies like this and hopefully work to make sure that equality is something that we take for granted one day'. Jake wasn't able to accept the honour in person because he was tied to the Zodiac set at the time.


Talking of great performances, Nathaniel Rogers mentioned today that Jake spoke of an actor he admired during the New Yorker Festival event last Saturday: 'Jake Gyllenhaal is obsessed with Ryan Gosling. Just saying. I would try to quote his answer from Saturday night when the audience question 'who would you like to work let's just say it began with Ryan Gosling, was jilted by Ryan Gosling via text "I'm busy" and then ended again with a circular non sequitor shout of "Ryan Gosling!" Jake likey. Ryan Gosling is what you might call an actor's actor... since everyone seems to want to work with him.'

This is particularly interesting because at the MTV TRL show back in the Zodiac days of 2007, Jake was asked which movie appearance he wished he'd done himself and he replied, Ryan Gosling's role in Half Nelson.



While I'm about it, here's the rest:




And showing what a small world this Hollywood world is, Ryan is also now attached to Farraut North which, for quite a while, we thought would take Jake to a New York stage.

Jake 'the lone poor cat' Gyllenhaal: 'It's just the beginning'

We're very lucky to have more accounts today of Jake Gyllenhaal's glorious return to the public stage in NYC on Saturday night. I particularly enjoyed this opening to an account of the evening by Nathaniel Rogers: 'He’d be unrecognizable but for those enormous blue eyes. In fact, when Jake Gyllenhaal walked out on stage at the SVA Theater in Chelsea on Saturday night, a full bushy beard covering what seemed like all of his face, film critic David Denby didn’t even introduce him by name. “I don’t know who this guy is,” Denby joked. “He looked a little lost, so we invited him in.”' With thanks to Nathaniel for the heads up (with the promise of more to come tomorrow), you can read his full account here.


A couple of extracts: '"[Maggie] would always boss me around,” Jake said, recalling their childhood. Maggie was always the star, Jake an extra. “I did everything wrong according to her. I was always banished in the corner. She’d put on Cats and I’d be the lone poor cat, sipping milk in the corner. Les Mis—when she put that on, I was just like a poor person in a corner. It’s never changed. It's still like that,” He added laughing.'


'Jake often admitted that he was still learning as an actor. “The character is built through a lot of mistakes for me. I like to go in and be really bad and somehow I find myself. It's found through overacting and bad acting, really. I have to act it first. I have to make all the mistakes first.”'

Jake explained his connection with Anne Hathaway: '“I had already had movie sex with her.” Jake explained, citing his marriage to Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain. Zwick clearly felt he had captured lightning in a bottle by reteaming them. “Each of them at this very moment is coming into the heights of their craft and power. That can't be described.” He believes that their musicality also helped their partnership. “Rhythm and music is so important to comedy—and sex!—And they both have that.” “And they both have enormous eyes.” Denby interjected. “That’s important for sex too!” Jake joked.' Read more at Tribeca Film.


Some sites have placed emphasis on other movie confessions of Jake's, while People focused on the age thing - the approach of the Big 3-0. '"Look guys, I'm not 30 yet!" Gyllenhaal cracked at Saturday's New Yorker Festival in Manhattan. "Can you cut it with the 30 comments?"... [But] I feel more like myself. I feel like now, it's just the beginning," he says. "I guess you get to a point at 30 or somewhere and you say, 'What I am, is what I am and that's what I'm going to be and that's all good. I don't need to be anything else.' And that's kind of how I feel."'


And that is indeed the realisation that many people come to at that age and it is the reason why being 30 is such a fabulous thing to be. Obviously, I don't know yet and I'll let you know when I reach that milestone... ahem.

People also picked up some words of Jake's on his relationship with Maggie: '"I love her a lot,"... but "we don't go around looking for something to work on together. I would rather spend time with my niece and spend time as brother and sister." Not that the door is completely closed. "It would take something that I love so much … that I would need her to be a part of, and vice versa," he says.'


Pumped Up PoP

Simon Waterson, Jake's trainer for PoP has become a bit of a legend around here, with more than a few dedicated posts. To mark the DVD release, Men's Health has released Jake's full training regime and it's as horrendously horrible as one would expect. 'We had to build a functional, strong and agile physique capable of dealing with a huge workload and stresses'.

As an example, here's a Dastan exercise you can do while washing the dishes: 'Deep squats with power jump: Holding a plate above your head, do a wide squat (with your feet a few inches wider than shoulder width, toes pointing slightly outwards) getting your rear as close to the floor as possible. Then jump at least 10 inches off the floor. As soon as your feet return to the ground go straight into the next squat.' I feel better already.


Includes pictures from IHJ and JJ.

Kissing Jake Gyllenhaal - 'Occasionally, I've been into it. I won't talk about with whom' and it's all about chemistry

Jake Gyllenhaal may have seduced the lucky attendees of the New Yorker Festival on Saturday night but there was a presence in that room that sought to push Jake into the shadows while seizing the limelight and centre stage for itself. It was noticed by all but none dared to speak of it; no questions were asked about it and yet many an answer was sought. Jake's Beard. Hot on the heels (or should that be chin?) of the WDW Should Jake Shave Poll, the Washington Post has now done its own poll, in which you can vote for the relative hotness of Jake's Beard. If you ever wanted to call Jake's Beard confusing, now is your chance.


While we have yet to get the full details of Saturday's Q&A, more teasers come our way, including a lengthier snippet of Jake's discussion about movie snogging [Please note that I have corrected the spelling of Jake's surname - Not good, NBC!]: 'It's inevitably uncomfortable," Gyllenhaal said. "It's inevitably awkward. And everybody's in on it. No matter how intimate it is, everybody's in on it. Occasionally, I've been into it. I won't talk about with whom." Gyllenhaal, joined on stage by film critic David Denby and director of his latest film "Love & Other Drugs" Ed Zwick, said it's hard to get hot and heavy when there's a crew watching.'


Lucky crew...


So, with whom was Jake into it? What do you think? I have my own favourite Jake love scenes, thinking Brokeback and looking ahead to Love and Other Drugs, and I wonder if Jake is referring to Anne and to Jen and maybe to Ellen? Possibly not with Gwyneth.


Love and Other Drugs has a page in the brand new November issue of Empire, which is great news because it sticks with the 29 December date! Ed Zwick has this to say about Jake and Anne Hathaway: 'When you see what they have together, that is the heart and soul of the movie... Chemistry is an elusive thing, in real life as in movies, but you do know it when you see it.'


I'm adding this video here for no other reason than that it's funny and I just watched it again.



Back to Jake's Beard.



So where is Jake now? Having no doubt celebrated Ramona's birthday yesterday with an exorbitant amount of jelly, trifle and PoP lego, one person, located in Boston, had this to say: 'best thing about my day.... saw Jake Gyllenhall. Worst thing about my day....almost stepped on a rat.' I must say that I would agree with both.


And finally...

53 years ago today, Sputnik launched and so began the Space Age. And so it makes me think of Jake and his portrayal of Homer Hickam. Jake even made an astronaut cry with his portrayal of a boy's dreams to look starwards.




Includes scan from WDW and pictures from IHJ.

Jake Gyllenhaal is back and 'his adorableness shines through all the fur'

Jake Gyllenhaal is back! He did indeed bring his bear Face Pet with him to the New Yorker Festival last night but it looked tamed and under control. In the words of one lucky person who was there last night and tweeted to me about it: 'The Beard is still there but I will say it's more forgivable in person because his adorableness shines through all the fur.' Someone else said: 'Newsflash: he is glorious and perfect.' And with many thanks to IHJ, we can see just how glorious and perfect for ourselves. I'm prepared to bet a pint that the beard and longer hair are role-related.


We don't have details yet about the interview itself, conducted by the New Yorker's film critic David Denby, but it also appears that other people had the chance to ask Jake some questions. One writer said: 'I asked Jake Gyllenhaal what he learned from playing Bubble Boy. He said to take chances like Depp.' After all our recent talk here about Jake's movies, it's good to hear Jake talk about, and be asked about, Bubble Boy and his early movies.



Other people, less familiar with Jake, came out of the theatre with a real liking for him, as an actor and as a genuinely nice person.







No doubt there is much more to come about this event so stay tuned!

More pictures at IHJ