After a relatively traumatic night, from which I'm still warming up, it feels good to revisit the summer and feel the warmth of sun and blue skies, a time when Jake was lost to public view on Martha's Vineyard. MV isn't just a summer home for Jake, it's also the place where much of Moonlight Mile took shape - it was at MV that Jake and Moonlight Mile director, writer and producer Brad Silberling came together because, completely coincidentally and fortuitously, Brad bought the house next door to the Gyllenhaals - they were 'destined to work together'.
Brad found Jake to be just like him, 'it was eerie'. Brad met Jake when Jake was just 18 and Jake grew stubble to keep Brad interested in employing him. Jake was too young but as the film took shape Jake grew older until at last Brad admitted to himself, 'It's his film, let's figure out the rest.' Jake agrees that 'the similarities were pretty staggering in a way.'
In this interview, recorded for Mvyradio in 2003, Jake and Brad reminisce about the origins of Moonlight Mile, the reasons for Jake's casting as Joe Nast, the meaning of MV to them both and, above all, the extraordinary soundtrack. As Jake says: 'I can't stop playing the soundtrack in my car, I cannot stop playing it. I stole it from Brad and I play the Travis track over and over and over and over again.'
At the very heart of this movie - an 'emotional biography' - is its music. Jake says that each day they would walk around with an earpiece playing the sounds of the film - 'I'd walk down the street with Van Morrison playing.' According to Brad, the music was another performer in the film. The song Moonlight Mile, by the Rolling Stones, is 'a pivotal song... that binds the love story in our film', so says Brad. It's 'a classic road song' and 'Jake does a beautiful job playing a character who has to choose to sort of speak his emotional truth or not.'
Brad recalls that he flew over to London to see Jake in This Is Our Youth and that, while in London, Jake had met the bassist of Travis. Jake describes that it had been 'at an awards show. I made a fool out of myself in London. I was the only American amongst a lot of Brits' ('surprise, surprise' interrupts Brad), 'I was actually bookended by Tony Blair and Mick Jagger... I don't know what I was doing there,' Jake says, '...You guys have great food.' Very true, Jake!
The interview closes by remarking that Jake could be seen in three films at that time: Moonlight Mile, The Good Girl and Lovely and Amazing, all with incredible actors. Jake says 'They're all about human beings, kind of what I'm drawn to, the real, everyday goings on and sort of the magnitude of these things can be huge, are huge, blowing things out of proportion and huge...'
Jake's asked what he's going to do next on MV: 'I'm going to do a little gardening, maybe go to the beach, take a proper vacation and play some basketball with some friends at the end of the day.' Sound good to me.
Hot on the heels of new pictures of the Joker, we now have a television appeal by assistant district attourney Rachel Dawes on behalf of Harvey Dent and in support of his campaign to be District Attourney for Gotham City. Apparently, this is in response to some scurrilous slurs made against the good name of Dent (alternative video link).
The hunt for someone (Peter Sarsgaard) not too distantly related to Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has grown warm again. Although no stars were in evidence, an IMDb poster today revealed how An Education has transfigured the streets of West Ealing, London. 'The parade of shops where I get my fruit and veg weekly has been transformed into the 1960s. All very well done, with old-style shop fronts and a huge period billboard. Some nice old cars, too, and I saw extras being bouffed up into teddyboys.' And the signs are they'll be back.
A week from today, Nailed begins filming in South Carolina and Jake Gyllenhaal (or Howard Ryder, as we shall soon know Jake as very well) will be back at work. Not surprisingly, the excitement is mounting in the neighbourhood at the prospect of an invasion by a high profile movie and its stars. Local site, The State, reports: 'When Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel come to town to film a movie, that’s kind of cool. So what if that movie is about a receptionist who has a nail shot into her head “eliciting wild sexual urges” and meets a congressman who takes advantage of “her sex drive,” as The Hollywood Reporter described the film in November? Not exactly the kind of stuff you tout to the Palmetto crowd. “Nailed is a political satire in which Sammy Joyce (Biel) ... goes on a crusade to Washington to fight for the rights of the ‘bizarrely injured’ and meets an immoral congressman (Gyllenhaal),” is how the S.C. Department of Commerce described the movie in a news release last month. The Commerce folks say they got the G-rated description straight from the production company. Guess Jake and Jessica, on their own, are sexy enough for most folks.'
The more one hears about Nailed, the more bizarre it seems, and the more one wonders how Jake will breath life and interest into the 'immoral' Howard Ryder. At the moment, it is still unclear how the script will play out, and I will confess to some bemusement. I hope that not all the compensations from such a film with such a storyline are the obvious ones (although those do go a long way, I admit).
Today's challenge
I'm always up for a challenge - especially if my mind has been sufficiently lubricated with Merlot - and today's was to include X-File's Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in a post.
Gillian was relatively easy. Jake and Gillian both took to the boards of the West End at around the same time and when Jake received his Evening Standard Newcomer of the Year Award (for This is Our Youth) at London's Savoy Hotel on 25 November, 2002, Gillian was a natural choice for presenter. Jake wasn't the only familiar winner that night, Sam Mendes also won two awards. These were for productions of Uncle Vanya and what is quite possibly my favourite Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night.
In 2003, the What's On Stage Theatregoers announced their awards for the year and both Jake and Gillian Anderson were winers - Gillian won best Actress for What the Night Is For at the Comedy Theatre while Jake won London Newcomer of the Year for his performance at the Garrick. Sam Mendes was nominated twice but, this time, unsuccessfully.
Jake has since admitted his unease at attending ceremonies in London. He had admitted to the Daily Mail back in January 2002: 'I'm a little scared to be doing theatre in London.' When he was interviewed by Martha's Vineyard radio (along with Brad Silberling for the promotion of Moonlight Mile), Jake said that he had been 'at an awards show. I made a fool out of myself in London. I was the only American amongst a lot of Brits' ('surprise, surprise' interrupts Brad), 'I was actually bookended by Tony Blair and Mick Jagger... I don't know what I was doing there,' Jake says, '...You guys have great food.'
To find a connection between Jake and David Duchovny was more of a challenge, but Ruby helped me out, and told me that they appeared together - with Shakira of the hips - on Last Call With Carson Daly back in September 2002. Not much is known of this show, but an eyewitness account survives. 'I tuned in just once so that I could see one of my favorite actors, Jake Gyllenhaal, who isn't really interviewed much (and this was summer 2002, so he was interviewed even less than he is now). I have never felt sorrier for another human being. Jake, I mean. That poor guy was trying to talk about his movies (two of which were out at the moment, with another coming out soon), and all Carson wanted to hear about was his love scene with Jennifer Aniston. That was IT. THEN Carson asks Jake about his sister Maggie's nude scenes in the movie Secretary. Jake shot him what can only be described as a "death glare," and Carson shut up. (Come on, Carson, that's his SISTER! He doesn't want to talk about her being naked!) And not ONCE did Carson mention October Sky or Donnie Darko! No, it was "Bubble Boy" and sex scenes...'
I'm not aware that Jake ever made a repeat visit. I'm not certain how David fared...
