The Seagull opened last night at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway to some rave reviews and a standing ovation. One of its leading lights, Peter Sarsgaard, had this to say when it was all over: 'I feel good, I feel great, I feel a little high. It feels a little like when you get into a very minor car accident where no one got hurt and you get that little feeling. The feeling where you go 'ahhh' and you need a drink? That's what I feel like.' Hopefully, at the after party at Sardis, Peter got one.
With Peter on the stage, Maggie Gyllenhaal was in the audience, looking stunning. It is good to read such fine reviews for the whole cast, including Kristin Scott Thomas, Carey Mulligan and Art Malik (whom I saw last month round the corner filming for a television drama). Incidentally, Peter and Carey's film An Education will receive its 'Market premiere' at the American Film Market, which takes place in Santa Monica from 5-12 November.
Do check out this New York Times audio slideshow for the play, which is accompanied by a discussion by Peter himself. The NYT review can be read here. More photos from the evening can be seen here.
However, despite Peter's stage success last night, there is no doubt who is the star of the Sarsgaard-Gyllenhaal household today - Ramona, who has her second birthday today. Happy bithday Ramona! You can bet Ramona will be much in the thoughts of Uncle Jake as he goes about swashing his buckle at Pinewood.
With Chekov's Seagull opening on Broadway this Thursday, starring our very own Peter Sarsgaard, I'm in a theatrical mood, helped along by Peter's appearance in an Associated Press interview today. The interview itself takes place on the stoop of his Brooklyn house (complete with blueberry muffin).
For the role of Trigorin, Peter has 'grown a lush beard... and radiates both charisma and sleaze.' And in the interview we learn that, at the last minute and without warning, Peter switched his accent on stage to an English one in order to be less acceptable to the audience. After An Education, Peter should be well-versed and, of course, he can practise with the Prince of Persia himself.
Hot on the heels of the announcement that Brokeback Mountain is to be turned into an opera, we now hear that Bubble Boy is to be 'musicalised' (I've made that word up). At this rate we'll be getting Zodiac on Ice.
Bubble Boy has had its share of critics, after all, it could be construed as being slightly tasteless. However, that is because you have to suspend belief and feed the laughter glands by revelling in Jimmy's happiness at being out of his bubble room and into the big wide world (albeit while still in a bubble), where you can tread on dog poo, leap in sunlight pools, mud wrestle, have your first sip of beer and meet shiny happy people (not to mention a bunch of other lunatics), while chasing your blue-eye blonde-haired dream all the way to Niagara Falls.
This film was also Jake Gyllenhaal's first experience of the stunt world of being a movie star: 'I'm falling over waterfalls, flying in an airplane, and being tossed off motorcycles... I did a lot of the stunts because the bubble makes it safer to hit the ground.' Jake also defended the film when the Immune Deficiency Foundation called for a boycott: 'It's actually really political, and I think, while being political, really empathetic to people who might be considered sort of oddball and different, and so in essence it becomes different itself.'
Some critics really did get the joke - and the charm in Jimmy's situation: 'Gyllenhaal is fabulous as Jimmy, a charmed innocent who grew up viewing the world from a distance and inspires people with his purity and lack of cynicism. Once he leaves home in pursuit of love and experience, Jimmy could be an alien visiting Earth for the first time: Everything is new to him, wondrous and strange. This is a star-making performance: It's impossible not to respond to Gyllenhaal's sweetness, wide eyes and dazzling smile, or to imagine anyone whose looks or personality would be more perfectly suited to the role.'
'Equally brilliant is Swoosie Kurtz, who gives a wicked spin to Jimmy's sex- phobic, fiercely overprotective mother. Determined to keep her child clueless and celibate, Mrs. Livingston is prone to reading aloud from "Pinocchio" and improvising the ending: "And then Pinocchio touched the filthy whore who lived next door and died."'
When Jake read the script: '"I laughed out loud at the perversity of the script... It's funny, but it's also touching and warm. It's a beautiful love story, and it's a story about a boy finding himself." Gyllenhaal said the idea that the movie makes fun of such children is ridiculous. "They obviously haven't seen the movie," the actor said, "because the boy is the hero of the movie. The people who make fun of him in the film are shown to be idiots. If anything, I think the movie will help bring an awareness of the disease to people who never heard of it."'
Director Blair Hayes wanted Jake for the role on first sight: 'We literally saw hundreds of actors for the role, but when Jake walked in, Beau and I looked at each other and we knew," director Hayes said. "Jake has a way of immediately being sympathetic, lovable and cute. That was essential for any actor playing this role. But more important, Jake is able to play comedy and drama. In the hands of just a comedic actor, this part would come off as shtick, and that was the last thing we wanted. There are not many actors making films today who can pull off both comedy and drama like Jake. It's a Tom Hanks quality, and Jake already has it."'
And when you watch this film, it has to be with the commentary...
And finally
Jake is a theme of a new musical, Jason and Ben, currently being performed in NYC. The play is not getting particularly warm reviews but has a highlight: 'Cohen's songs are mostly fine, capable examples of 1990's Emo pop that would be better enjoyed outside of the show since nearly all of them lack theatricality. The score's lone attempt at humor, Ben's gushy tribute to the charms of Jake Gyllenhaal, is its clear highlight.' It's difficult to see the fault in anything that includes a gushy tribute to Jake Gyllenhaal. So that's a 10 out of 10 from me and I don't even need to see it...
A short post this evening, because WDW has been stricken with a bug, and for that I attribute the condition widely known and dreaded as Lackofjakitis as a significant contributing factor. However, Jake Gyllenhaal may have gone AWOL, but we can pin down Peter Sarsgaard. With the Seagull opening soon on Broadway, publicity pictures have been released of Peter as Trigorin, alongside the lovely Kristin Scott Thomas and An Education's Carey Mulligan.
Meanwhile, another lucky holidaymaker has posted further pictures of the Prince of Persia set at the simply stunning Ait Benhaddou. The more I see of these photographs, the more I want to revisit Morocco, after a lot of years - I do love these colours and shades.
And while we're thinking about the Prince, here is a rather enigmatic, animated trailer for the new game, which is to be released on 5 December - 'A new Prince of Persia'.
No post can be complete without a picture of Jake, and so here is a new old picture of Jake from IHJ (thanks!), which I appreciate as further evidence of Jake's bendy qualities (either that, or Jake's very hungry). Normal service will resume tomorrow...
Last week, Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal were spotted in that old favourite filming haunt of ours, Santa Fe, where Maggie is currently 'lensing' Crazy Heart along with Robert Duvall and Jeff Bridges. It seems Ramona and her parents were enjoying a spot of face-painting at the Santa Fe Children's Museum, although it is not known what design they picked (a ferret perhaps?). Since then, Peter has presumably had to leave New Mexico for London where rehearsals for The Seagull begin today (25 August) before the production moves lock stock and barrel to Broadway in September.
Peter will be sharing the stage with his An Education co-star Carey Mulligan - who also has a role in Brothers (An Education also features, of course, Alfred Molina, who is currently in Morocco with Jake). This new picture of Carey as Jenny from An Education comes from the blog of the film's screenwriter Nick Hornby, who also gives his impression of seeing the unfinished film for the first time alongside an unsuspecting audience who were literally pulled off the street:
'It felt to me as though it went well – people laughed in the right places, and the friend I went with cried in the right places, too. (Other members of the audience may have cried too, of course, but crying tends to be a quieter activity in the cinema. If you can actually hear people bawling like babies, your film is probably too sad for general consumption.) And I enjoyed it, much more than I thought I would, given one’s natural distaste for one’s own work. It looks great, and the performances are fantastic. But four years’ work went by in a flash, or in an hour and forty-five minutes, anyway. Part of me felt as though the audience should experience the same kind of slog as we endured. And though I wouldn’t want people to sit through, say, a four-year long film, it wouldn’t kill them if it lasted twelve hours or so, would it?'
It seems Peter got the job of Trigorin in The Seagull because Carey asked him to name actors he thought suitable, whereupon Seagull director Ian Rickson threw away the list and hired Peter instead. The reason being: 'The virility of Trigorin, and his attachment to nature, his sexuality, his vibrancy, I feel is a really important thing... Young actors who are very masculine and have that soulfulness are very hard to find.' Rickson certainly has one in Peter.
In this article, Peter also describes his response to seeing Heath Ledger as the Joker, a performance that demonstrated so perfectly to Peter that extremely talented and so called 'independent' actors can find a home in blockbusters and franchises (one also must think of Prince of Persia): 'You see Heath Ledger’s performance and you go, well, there’s somebody who shows that it’s possible to be an enormously amazing actor in the middle of a franchise... I see that movie and I see a man who is happy acting—it looks like he’s tap-dancing. The part does not destroy the actor, ever, if they’re good. That had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to him.'
Peter says in his Screen Test video interview for New York Times - and it's such a good self-portrait - that he finds the stage more difficult but more interesting than a movie set. You have to retain an 'iron grip' for the length of the production.
And with all the political talk going on lately, with Obama's announcement of his running mate, this seems like a good point at which to post Peter's video for the 18 in 08 campaign. If this man asked you to vote, how could you say no?
So what of another of Peter's co-stars, Jake Gyllenhaal? Today I revisited Jarhead, which has so many attractions and reasons for watching that it would be impossible to list them all - but one has blue eyes and the most gorgeous smile you can imagine, despite his hair issues. So here is Jake on the set of Jarhead describing the film and paying tribute to its director Sam Mendes. I just hope that Jake is having a similar kind of rewarding experience on the set in Morocco with Mike Newell.
'To have a director who appreciates who you are, who's not making you into something else that you're not, is really awesome; is probably unlike any other experience I'll ever have again.'
