Jake going On the Road with Walter Salles?

The Telegraph today published an interview with young Jamie Bell, star of Billy Elliot, who is now aiming to make the transition into leading men roles. It seems that recently Jamie went for a role but with no luck and this is the reason: '"I don't go up for a huge amount of stuff because most of it is bad. But Walter Salles is making a movie of Jack Kerouac's On the Road and I went to meet him and do a reading. And straight away the part was offered to Jake Gyllenhaal. He's a great actor, older, more experienced but I was bummed. It would've been amazing to work with Salles."'


After I picked myself up off the floor, I did some furtling and found that there was quite a bit of talk surrounding this project in August 2005. The movie rights to On The Road have been owned by Francis Ford Coppola since 1979. At long last, in 2005, Coppola found the desired director, Walter Salles, who directed The Motorcycle Diaries. Published in 1957, On the Road presents Kouriac's journeys around America and Mexico. Salles said in 2005: "On the Road is a seminal book that gave voice to a whole generation - capturing its hunger for experience, unwillingness to accept imposed truths and dissatisfaction with the status quo... It is as modern today as it was four decades ago." The screenwriter is apparently Jose Rivera who also worked with Salles on The Motorcycle Diaries.


There is a previous Jake Gyllenhaal link: At the end of that other road movie, Highway, beloved Pilot and Jack (Jared Leto) quoted some lines from On The Road.


So, here's another rumour to add to the many about Jake's next project but, whether this one comes to anything or not, it shows that Jake is out there, going for the good roles and, by the sound of it, this is recent. Jake would be great in this and Salles could be another of those directors Jake would want to work with.



Includes pictures from IHJ.