Jake - 'Personally, I like to play in deeper water'

The American Film Institute chose not to follow the path of its British cousin, preferring instead to completely ignore Zodiac (and Rendition) in its Top 10 list for 2007. However, you remember the Buzzsugar poll in which we could vote for our favourite drama of the year? Well, Zodiac won, so good work everyone! The best dramatic actor has not been announced yet, so there's still time to vote I believe.



Thanks to IHJ for New Old pictures which can be found throughout this post - they were taken at the MTV Movie Awards in 2006 and feature a stunning and little warm Jake.

Brothers filming in Los Alamos

Jake's new project, Brothers, continues apace and today there was a IMDb sighting of the hoopla of filming: 'They are definitely filming at a church in Los Alamos today. I just went to lunch and saw all the commotion. Base camp is not at the Catholic Church. It is at the Los Alamos UNM campus. In the back.'



Moonlight Mile Memories

After an enjoyable night watching The Knight's Tale on UK TV last night, this evening it's the turn of Moonlight Mile (BBC1 11.20pm) - a rare treat on terrestrial television. So to put us in the mood, whether we live in Britain or not, here are some bits and pieces about the filming. In 2001, the Boston Globe visited the set in Gloucester and reported that '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.' I was drawn to the last sentence.


In 2002, Jake was interviewed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune about Moonlight Mile (among other things): 'The only time Gyllenhaal brings up his star status is when he wants to poke fun at it. He kidded about his Oscar-winning co-stars, saying he made it clear from the first day of shooting that he was in charge. "Susan followed along pretty well, but Dustin could be difficult," he said, deadpan. He started to add something about Hunter, but burst into laughter. "Sorry," he gasped. "I can't keep this going." Seriously, though, working with such a veteran cast did have benefits. "What I've discovered in the last year is that the best actors feel comfortable in their own skin," he said. Brad Silberling, the writer-director of "Moonlight Mile," predicted big things for Gyllenhaal. "Jake is the `it' guy right now," he said. "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." Sarandon, who mixes mainstream movies with independent films, saluted Gyllenhaal for wanting to remain active in art-house films. "Jake is very bright, and he's obviously very talented," she said. "By starting as a character actor, he's got a base that's broad enough that he can be thrust into leading-man status and survive."' As always, few talk with such insight about Jake as Susan Sarandon.


Director and writer Brad Silberling told the Detroit Free Press in 2002: '"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.'" Gyllenhaal says he was more than eager to hear everything Hoffman had to say about his character and their relationship, and he was especially pleased when Hoffman drew comparisons between his character and the shell-shocked Benjamin Braddock in "The Graduate." The more experienced Sarandon, while praising Hoffman's intensity and attention to emotional detail, admits to becoming exasperated with him occasionally. "At some point, you have to say, `Fine, great; let's shoot the thing and quit talking already,'" she says.'


At the Toronto Film Festival in 2002, Jake did a Q&A on Moonlight Mile which was featured in the Bostone Globe:
Q. Most of your roles to date have been young men who react, often passively, to strong characters or extreme situations. What's up with that?
A. This year has been a lot about being reactive, just personally. But also the best roles for people my age have been those types of roles. The supposedly active roles deal with a sense of sexuality that nobody necessarily wants from someone at a young age, unless they're a football jock or something relatively cliched. And there's not much going on there, at least for me. Personally, I like to play in deeper water.


Q. How did you go about finding your way into this role?
A. I had been around the script for a year and a half before we eventually started shooting, so I knew it pretty much backwards and forwards. There was a lot of thought about what was going on and the secrets that I was holding, but a lot of times you just have to come in and listen and have faith that the director's going to pull off the job. Of everything I've worked on so far, there's been, strangely, the least preparation with this.
Q. Do you wish you'd done anything differently?
A. Yes. Always. I always wish that I could have done everything differently. But you know, the Tao Te Ching says, "Don't cling to your work." That's my attitude towards things more and more. It wasn't at the time, and I think maybe that if it had been, it would have made for a better performance.


Q. This was the last of five films you shot back to back. Did you bring anything to "Moonlight" that you'd learned from the others?
A. No. But I will bring to movies after this what I got from "Moonlight."
Q. Which is?
A. Preparation. That it's a discipline. That people who say that acting doesn't involve a tremendous amount of work don't really know the craft. That's the thing that Dustin [Hoffman] taught me; he works just as hard as anybody. Even this play I just did in the West End [of London] called "This is Our Youth," Dustin was a big influence on me doing that. And in rehearsing for a month beforehand, I learned that what actors consider spontaneity doesn't really come from being "spontaneous" and not knowing your lines. Real spontaneity comes from overworking your brain to such an extent that it stops working and something can flow through it.
So, in the future, that's how I'll approach it. Unfortunately, as an actor I feel like the performances I've given have not done that yet.

[These articles are from WDW Archives and, as such , have no links.]


As a familiar treat, here is the Making of Moonlight Mile video for you to enjoy.



The Dark Knight

While we're showing videos - at last the official trailer of the Dark Knight has been released, featuring the sensational Heath Ledger as a terrifying and very real Joker as well as the occasional glimpse of Maggie. Just listen to Heath's voice in this - it sends shivers across the skin.


Includes pictures from IHJ.