'The love fest' - Moonlight Mile

After the recent Brokeback post, and while we wait to see if we will ever learn in which continent Jake now finds himself, I thought I'd take a look at another film of Jake's in which chemistry is everything. For me, Moonlight Mile is right up there, knocking on the door of Brokeback, for the connection between Jake Gyllenhaal and Ellen Pompeo and for the other connections - between Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon and between both of these and the young Jake.


There is a contradiction about Moonlight Mile to my mind. The story is built upon the most awful tragedy, not just for Joe, but also for Bertie. But there is real humour in it - and hope. I feel that a very big part of why we feel this is because of what seems like genuine affection between the four main cast members and because of the family dynamic, especially between Jake and Dustin. With Jake getting top billing and with Dustin keen to clip Jake's feathers while littering him with advice, I get a sense of Jake's nervous rebelliousness. He agreed to do This is Our Youth, as strongly advised by Dustin, but stood firm against him to do a blockbuster movie.


Without doubt, Jake impressed both Susan and Dustin. Brad Silbering recounted (in the Detroit Free Press): '"It took Dusty six months to make up his mind, six months of us talking on the phone every day, working through detail, half the time talking about anything but the script. Finally I got him together with Jake, because I truly believed that would get him off the dime. And he just fell in love with him. He kept saying, `He's like a young Buster Keaton; he's like a young Keaton.'"


We've enjoyed Susan's flirtatious comments about Jake before, but I liked this description of him that she gave at the Toronto Film Festival: '"He's very bright," says Sarandon. "The emphasis is focus. He reminds me of Sean Penn. I love the fact that he grew up in a show-business family and still has great values."' Elsewhere in this article, Jake says of his role as Joe: 'I have regrets, but I will hopefully mend them in future things'.


Here is a lengthier extract: 'If Gyllenhaal mania arises, the actor admits that there are worse fates than Leonardo DiCaprio-style celebrity. "There's something alluring about it," says Gyllenhaal, whose entourage at Toronto consists of three longtime friends who've spent as much time accompanying him to movie theaters as they have to bars. "I would not be human to say that I don't fall for that. But it seems to me that ... if you're in that position, it's not really in your control, except in the choices that you make and the movies that you choose to do. The nice thing about that position, regardless of the entourage or the girls, is that you can do any movie you want, which is what's alluring to me." Gyllenhaal, who next stars with Dennis Quaid in the Roland Emmerich film The Day After Tomorrow, feels good about where he is. "I think I'm in a pretty OK position," he says. "It's hard to get perspective. ... It's so weird that I want more even though I have a ton."'


This comraderie between the cast was pretty clear for all to see at the Toronto press conference: 'The mood at the press conference yesterday for Moonlight Mile, about a bereaved husband-to-be coming to terms with his grief, was set when Susan Sarandon sat down, turned to her co-star Jake Gyllenhaal and asked, "Did you just pinch my ass?" Within two minutes, Dustin Hoffman had laid his head in the laps of both Sarandon and co-star Ellen Pompeo, played footsie with Sarandon and asked her for sexual favours. Then the cast launched into a rousing Happy Birthday for director Brad Silberling. It was, in Sarandon's words, "a bit of a love fest" on the set of this movie.'


And then there's Ellen... The story of her fairy tale meeting with Jake in an LA carpark is well known, but here is a fuller account of it: 'A guy tried to pick her up in the parking lot behind gourmet sandwich shop Joan's on Third. She says she had no idea he was actor Jake Gyllenhaal. "She walked by and I was just blown away by this energy," Gyllenhaal says. "She does this thing with her hair where she kind of jolts it back and forth. I thought it was so sexy." "He knocked on my [car] window in the parking lot," Pompeo says. "And he was standing there very nervous and shy. He said, 'I just want to tell you that you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my entire life.' And he tried to run away. So I said, 'Wait a minute, come back here.' Normally, I would say, 'Thank you' and let it go. But there's something so interesting about his face, so soulful."


'"I looked down at her passenger seat," Gyllenhaal says, "and I saw that there were 'sides' on it," the parts of scripts actors are given to read for auditions, "and I was like, 'Oh God, this girl's an actor." Pompeo says she told him, "Maybe we'll work together someday. Thanks for the compliment. See ya. And that was it." But it wasn't. Three weeks later, under the urging of New York casting director Avy Kaufman, known for finding actors their breakthrough roles--like Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" and Tobey Maguire in "The Ice Storm"--Pompeo auditioned for writer-director Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile" (at the time tentatively titled "Baby's in Black") and found herself reading with none other than Gyllenhaal. "I walked into the room and he turned pale. Then I turned pale. It was so bizarre," Pompeo says.'


'"In walks Ellen to the room and I was like, no way," Gyllenhaal says. "I guess she had burned her forehead with a curling iron. It was just like this big scabby thing on her forehead and she was trying to hide it the best she could. But finally she was like, 'I know it's really stupid but I was trying to straighten my hair.' And she blew the audition out of the water. She walked out of the room and Brad turned to me and said, 'There's our movie.'"'


Ellen says that she became used to being confused with Renee Zellwegger but she has Jake to back her up: '"With Ellen, besides that voice and the sense that people might think in a cliched way--God, I don't know. If you put Renee and her in the same room, I don't know who would come out standing."'


One can't forget Brad Silberling. His terrible personal tragedy tied the cast together and all of the actors endeavour to do it justice. Brad said of Jake (Star Tribune 2002): 'As young actors go, he's alone in his field. He's really open and sensitive. And he's passionate. He has his eye on doing things he can be proud of.'


Includes pictures from IHJ and articles from WDW archives.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Naked every day

Secretary receives a showing on British TV this evening (10.35pm Channel 4) and, to celebrate the showing, I ask your patience for a gratuitously naked post. Maggie Gyllenhaal received acclaim for her brave and sexy portrayal of Lee Holloway, even pleasing one of her most brutally honest critics, brother Jake: 'I remember one of the first movies she did, which will go unnamed, and when I watched it, I said to her, 'I can't tell you any other way, but you were really bad.' And she started crying, she was so hurt. And then, with Secretary, it was just like, 'You were extraordinary!' And she was. But she knows I'm honest, and she knows that I love her.' You can read more about Maggie's view of the film's perception here, in an interview in which she makes the ritual of afternoon tea sexy.


Watching Maggie in the role couldn't have been easy and Jake has said he watched it through his fingers: 'When asked how he feels about seeing his sister in a naked scene, Jake confessed: "It's great I'm sort of saying, 'Yeah, it's right. Show them what it's all about!' But as a brother, I still hide my eyes and I still say, 'Oh, my God!' And I know she does too when there are love scenes that I'm in."'


Although several of Jake's directors have taken the surprising step of covering him up in more layers than is surely necessary, others have seen the light and permitted a glimpse and, in the case of Jarhead, even a wiggle. As Jake says in the fun feature below for E!'s hunt for the sexiest movie star: 'I do like getting naked on set'. Jake's reaffirmed his comfort in his own skin was repeated in his Jarhead interview for Conan O'Brien (the interview which also featured Jake singing showtunes ala Bono and miming his jellyfish sting-saving behaviour).



The Santa hat dance clearly got the attention of the critics and the questions were thick and fast: 'If you knew me at all you'd know there's absolutely no preparation involved in the act of getting me naked!... It was a scene that was written and as an actor you normally go through and read the dialogue - the only dialogue in that scene was, "Merry Christmas," - so I was like, "Oh, whatever," and then I'd just get onto the next scene where, you know, we had a lot of dialogue. I was more interested in those until I was sitting there naked in the middle of the desert with a Santa hat on my crotch! No real preparation involved. And no fear!'


And for Brokeback: 'All the training paid off and I feel confident in my body and having no clothes on. Think of that more figurative than literally.' Jake told a German site that having a stuntman jump off the cliff for him in Brokeback (unlike Heath) was nothing to do with not wanting to be seen naked - he wanted to avoid the risk of getting hurt so close to the casting for Jarhead, but 'You're welcome to write I'm a coward!'



But Jake is not one for gratuitous nudity in movies ('I'm not shy about taking my clothes off, but if I'm going to see pictures of myself naked on the Internet, I would love to feel like there was a reason for it, that it was of service to the story'), perhaps to the disappointment of director of Bernardo Bertolucci.



Bernardo had Jake very much in mind for Dreamers: 'in London, before I decided to do anything, I met Jake Gyllenhaal. I liked him very much. I saw him on stage and then it was clear that Jake would have been so tortured about showing his body. It became clear almost immediately after a few days. I know that he was one of those very meticulous actors who wants to know everything and wants explanation. Every time there was a scene that was sexy, I would see myself trying to explain [to him.] It was impossible. I don’t blame him because I would have reacted in the same way. I cannot be naked in front of a camera.'



Bertolucci does point out, however, that even French actors have baulked at Bernardo's naked demands. ('Did they ask Reubens why he was painting naked women?' It seems to me that they knew very well why Reubens was painting naked women.) You can read a lot more of Jake discussing this project in his famous ladies' loo interview with Susan Sarandon.



Jake joked about turning down the role, comparing the demands of Bertolucci with those of Emmerich on The Day After Tomorow: 'Yeah, it was like when I was auditioning for Bertolucci, he was like, 'you're going to have to get naked in this movie. If you don't want to get naked then you can't do it.' Roland was like, 'look, this is a movie about the environment, and if you don't want to help the environment and get out of your car and recycle, you can't be in this movie.' It was a very similar discussion (laughs). I know there's no irony in print, either.'



When Cosmopolitan asked Jake back in 2006 how he coped with nudity in films, he replied: 'Well I'm naked every day so I cope with it. It's not so hard for me.' And if this made him a secret naturist? 'Yeah [laughs]. I like to take off my clothes at the end of the day, I like to put them on at the beginning of the day and I prefer to keep them on throughout the day.' Finally, Jake once spoke of how he reacted to criticism: 'It is ego-boosting and ego-destroying: the smallest compliment can send you smiling and happy running naked in the woods.' Jake, you're a fine actor.





Includes pictures from IHJ.

Jake Gyllenhaal showing his feathers - Moonlight Mile and the Graduate

Following yesterday's post which took a look at Jake Gyllenhaal side by side with a range of fellow actors in photographs taken at the kind of events to which moviestars get an invite, I thought today I'd take a look at Jakes relationship with one particular actor who has had an influence on Jake's career - Dustin Hoffman. This is also prompted by the happy fact that I saw Moonlight Mile again at the weekend after far too long a time.


My personal feeling about this relationship is that it was both productive and prickly - and maybe a litle awkward - coloured by parallels with The Graduate and by Dustin's sense of paternalism for a young and gifted character actor. But also, Jake Gyllenhaal was promoted as the film's leading name while Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon were 'the support'.



While Jake and Susan appeared to have a deliciously flirtatious working relationship, Jake's with Dustin seemed much more that of deliberate mentor and polite student. Jake got round the potential awkwardness of being the leading name with charm: 'I think thank God that I'm not supporting him because I wouldn't be able to hold him up. Thank God that he's supporting me because he can most definitely hold me up.'


Jake's working relationship with Susan Sarandon was very different: 'I think that everyone kind of feels like they have to tiptoe around icons like that. And with the younger actors, I think that he does like to do a little trip, a little intimidation game. I would, you know, show my feathers and he would rip them out... Yeah. I think the dynamic kind of showed itself in the film a little bit too. Working with Susan though was a much more relaxed experience. Maybe it's because it's male-female versus a male-male dynamic, but with Susan, we just really became friends. We talked and we hung out... And they have two totally different styles of work. I mean, Susan does two takes. Dustin works forever and has little pieces of brilliance. Susan has no notes on her script and Dustin has eight thousand notes all over his script and they both get to the same end. As a young actor, it's a little confusing because you're wishing for a key!'



'Before the film, Gyllenhaal said, he was confident that he was a "pretty damn good" actor. But watching Hoffman and Sarandon made him realize "I didn't know what the hell I was doing." Gyllenhaal said Hoffman taught him the importance of "preparation being a real discipline," and that acting "should be just as hard as anybody else's work." "That's something a lot of young actors take for granted. They rely on spontaneity to be their muse. But preparation is a muse, too, and it can lead you to real spontaneity," Gyllenhaal said.'


As for how Susan got along with Dustin: 'Sarandon said her and Hoffman's real personalities are "close to the dynamic" of the characters they play: "Me saying 'Shut up, Dustin' and him talking and talking. But in a loving way."
"He's a happy family guy, and my family is very important to me, and that was a bond for us," she said of Hoffman. "He was completely open and unguarded and not the least bit competitive. It's not uncommon to come up against an (actor) who, in the alpha male tradition, sprays his territory. But (Hoffman) was very gentle, completely cooperative, exploring, curious and not in the least cynical."'


Comparisons between Jake and the young Dustin were common at the time, especially with reference to The Graduate. Jake said: 'Hoffman started out wanting to change things and he did: he made some great stories, like The Graduate, that are still in our consciousness now. I feel like it's really important to do something new and be like those people I respect.' And here, at a press junket: '"Oh, you're going the 'Graduate' route," Gyllenhaal said with a sigh, after being asked about the similarities. He reports, with some alarm, that an early review of "Moonlight" called his performance "a Benjamin imitation."'


'"That's so interesting because I had no knowledge I was doing that, but now it's being classified as that," he said. While he acknowledges the echoes, he says, "People are only drawing these comparisons because Dustin's in the film." Hoffman's also in the room, being interviewed at another table. Gyllenhaal, who beams in Hoffman's presence, shouts across the room to his co-star: "She says I remind her of you!" "You're taller, you're better-looking, and when I played your character, I was 10 years older," Hoffman shoots back, without missing a beat.' Dustin made comparisons himself between Jake's Joe and his Benjamin: 'Joe is like Benjamin in that he is in a place where he does not know what to do next. I didn't feel different playing a different character in the same scenario.'


Dustin also recalled that Jake reminded him of his own son, another Jake, with whom our Jake was friends: 'Jake is friends with my 21-year-old son. In fact I think they might be blood brothers as they've shared some of the same girls - but not at the same time!' (South Wales Echo).


Jake has commented that, even when Dustin was not officially working, he would still stand behind the camera advising Jake. '"He talked a lot about how making movies is a team effort," Gyllenhaal said. "He would be on the set when he wasn't working. There's a lot of [closeups of] me just listening, and he would be there, standing behind the camera, to talk to me."' (Star Tribune.) And according to one report, that encouragement could bruise: '[Dustin] encourages Gyllenhaal between takes, critiquing him in ways that seem gently, genuinely helpful. At the moment, though, Hoffman is more concerned about the beating he's laying on his costar. The scene they're shooting winds down with Hoffman giving Gyllenhaal an enthusiastic slap on the knee and springing up from the bench where they've been talking. But Hoffman has been dishing out that same slap for hours now. "Jake's going to take his pants off and he's going to have a black- and-blue mark," Hoffman chuckles.' (Boston Globe.)


Most famously, Dustin was a big influence beind Jake's decision to take to the stage for his award-winning perfomance in This Is Our Youth and Dustin was there to watch in the theatre. But Jake did resist Dustin's advice that he should not take the role in The Day After Tomorrow and instead wait and see what came along - Jake opted to have some fun seeing the other side of movie making. 'I said, 'Dustin, I really want to make this movie.' And I think he's been through movies that haven't been his cup-of-tea – he'd rather be the storm in the movie than the storm itself! And I totally respect that. But I grew up with those movies. I go every summer to all of them. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to do it. It's a lie to say it's a career-movie, or it's a lie to say the character is amazing – I just wanted to be in a movie like that' (IndieLondon).


But Dustin's role in Moonlight Mile was word perfect. I loved this account by Dustin of the scene in which he kissed Jake's Joe goodbye: '"I remember that moment exactly," Hoffman answered, leaning across the table. "I'll tell you the story. I like to block out all the business I'm going to do in a scene first: 'Okay, I'm packing up my office, I see a photograph of my daughter, I cross to show it to Jake, I say goodbye.' I walked through it a few times, then Brad [Silberling] said, 'Let's try one for the camera.' So I go through the scene, I'm not expecting anything, I stand in front of Jake, and suddenly I'm completely overwhelmed, out of nowhere I'm weeping, weeping, I can't stop, and I have to turn away."'


'As he's saying this, Hoffman's voice breaks, and I look up from my notebook to see that recounting the moment is making him cry all over again. Tears are plopping from his eyes and his voice is getting thinner, but he keeps talking: "Brad is saying, 'Where are you going?' and I'm saying" -- here Hoffman hides his face behind one raised arm and slashes the air with the other, as if to signal Stop -- " 'It's over Brad, the scene is over, I can't do it again, I don't even want to look at him any more.' And that's the take we used."... He was crying freely then, his cheeks glistening.'


Three other interesting tidbits sprng to mind - Moonlight Mile was supposed to have been called Baby's in Black but the Beatles' song was too expensive to purchase, Brad Silberling initially considered Keanu Reeves for the part of Joe Nast, and Jake said: 'I've had the most horrible haircuts in every movie I've been in... I've actually had people ask me, `Do you wear wigs in your movies?'' Not much changed there then...


And if you want to see a cartwheeling Jake, then look no further than this Making of Moonlight Mile video.



Includes pictures from IHJ.

Jake Gyllenhaal - just read those lips... Giving everybody 'a little bit of something'

Following the recent post on Jake Gyllenhaal's beautiful eyes, in which some of us can see different shades of colour, I thought today it was time to appreciate that other feature of Jake's which first attracted me to him back in 2004 - those lips and that mouth. It doesn't seem to matter what he does with it - smiles, laughs, eats, chews gum, grimaces, talks, kisses, licks it - or even what Jake does to cover it (moustache or beard) - but it always grabs hold of your eyes, set off as it is by that instantly memorable and recognisable mole above the lip.


In this favourite video, the power of one of Jake's greatest weapons in his campaign to make our hearts tremble is captured - the lick of the lips.



And there is the suggestion that it might not be purely unintentional, and we should not be surprised that Jake is aware of its impact - he's had years of watching its effect.


Susan Sarandon's appreciation for Jake's beauty is well-known, fellow Moonlight Miler Ellen Pompeo apparently loved Jake's lips - and his hair. This feature is full of little gems about why Jake is a favourite crush, as these memories from Moonlight Mile demonstrate: Jake 'blushed when praised for arranging a surprise birthday party for his driver on the set. "We just brought him a cake," he demurs. "That was all."'



'Maybe so, but in a business known for supersize egos, Gyllenhaal's small acts—like his tendency to let everyone else go through the catering line before him during the two-month shoot for Mile in Massachusetts and L. A. last year—did not go unnoticed. "Everyone had crushes on him—wardrobe, makeup, everybody," says his costar Aleksia Landeau, 27. "He's not like those actors who are like, 'Look at me!' He has a poetic soul. He lets people come to him."'



Dustin Hoffman didn't focus on Jake's eyes or lips... 'Success hasn't changed him; he's retained his own unique, personal insanity.' Brad Silberling calls Jake 'a generous soul'. I was amused to hear of Jake: "I'm slogging through David McCullough's biography of John Adams." I wonder if he finished it...


A Californian - and ferret racing

I was given a challenge today by Ruby - to fit the subject of ferret racing into this evening's post. The reason being that, when Gyllenhaalics get together, they are able to do more than simply gab about Jake, although I must admit that we discovered it is possible to gab about Jake and watch ferret racing at the same time. Sadly, my favourite ferret - as modelled here by Ruby (and its handler) - finished last because it preferred to lie on its back and have its stomach tickled.


So, just when I thought I would find no way to link Jake to this traditional sport - surely to be reinstated into the London Olympics - we discovered that the whole proceedings were taking place under the auspices of the Californian Republican flag (and an old guy panning for gold).


And while some of us have this flag on our fridges in magnet form, others go much further and turn it into a fashion statement, and none does it better than Jake Gyllenhaal. These pictures date from last summer, at another time when Jake spent much of the time away from the public eye (and California) - this year, at least, we will see the fruits of this absence in the theatres during May 2010.


But back to those lips...





Includes pictures from IHJ, Just Jared, Getty and WDW.