Jake - 'You just get tons of input, and its wonderful'

Tonight the Golden Globes takes place, although as a press conference and not as a glamorous and very tipsy cermemony and meal at the Beverly Hilton. As the Globes failed to give Zodiac any recognition whatsoever, I'm not above a spot of petulance and I'll admit to not feeling too bothered by its downgrading. During the promotion of Rendition, Jake Gyllenhaal was asked if he was affected by this lack of recognition or by relatively low box-office takings: 'Y’know, creative expectations should be high, the results of those expectations should be low,... I hope people want to see these movies, but the focus should be on the fun you had doing it. I learned that from Brokeback Mountain. We made it for hardly anything and it earned about $200-million worldwide. That was just kind of nice.'


Elsewhere in the interview (with Bob Strauss), Jake talks about what influences him as a moviestar in Hollywood and what the term 'hero' means to him, with reference to Rendition: 'We’re all obsessed, at least in the movie industry, with doing ‘the right thing.’ Making movies about people who do the right thing — or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, people who don’t do the right thing and pay the consequences of doing the wrong thing. That’s the spectrum within which we work... But what I’m interested in in this movie is that I have a character who witnesses the torture. He doesn’t do the right thing, he just does the thing that makes sense. To me, that’s what it’s about. You create heroes, whatever your idea of a hero is. But heroes don’t exist. Human beings exist, and that’s what fascinates me about this movie.'


One gets the impression that Jake has grown surrounded by creative influences and pulls on his conscience, maybe not of all of which tugged him in the same direction: 'There are five people in my family who are all in that world... You really get a great perspective from that… Some really believe in something that others don’t. You just get tons of input, and it’s wonderful.'


A small price to pay to be the girl in the middle

Thanks to IHJ as always for providing new/old pictures of Jake at this time of drought. These pictures were taken in NYC in September 2006 and I remember the amusement at the time that two such strapping lads were letting the girl carry a box the size of a small car. Admittedly, Jake does have his hands full (sort of) and, of course, it could very well have been her choice but I know I'd have handed it over in the time it took to complete the sentence 'Jake, you've been shaving your legs again'.





Meanwhile, Jake's friend/assistant was fortunate enough to have dinner this time with Jake's other friend, the gorgeous and massively talented Adam Levine from Maroon 5.


Includes pictures from IHJ and Just Jared.