Cool Jake on promoting TDAT - 'Do you think I'll need a sweater?'

Last night, watching a rather iffy film about a great deluge hitting London inevitably made me think about another film in which a different city, New York City, was hit by giant waves - not to mention snow, ice and wolves. The Day After Tomorrow had the huge advantage on Flood in that it starred Jake Gyllenhaal, predictably making this film my favourite in the Disaster Movie genre (even beating The Towering Inferno with the wonderful Paul Newman and Steve McQueen).


It's impossible not to have a chuckle when watching even the most earnest disaster film, and I've always thought they must be rather fun to make, if a little confusing having to act against blue screens and invisible acts of nature. The Day After Tomorrow was also rather strange in that its producers decided to promote the trailer for the film, back in 2004, in the 'coldest room in Los Angeles' (in a working ice plant in Van Nuys, California). The idea that Jake showed up for this event driving his gas guzzling Merc and wearing a white t-shirt ('Do you think I'll need a sweater?' he asked upon his arrival) makes it all the more amusing. You can read more about this chilly presentation here.


This is a very funny account of an event so cold, in such a warm city, that hot chocolate had to be laid on to warm up the media. Not only was the film projected upon ice but also the seats themselves were made of ice, which surely everyone knows isn't that good for you? The ice picks on the wall prompted Jake to say 'Hey, this looks like the kind of place where the Mafia would hang out'. All in all, not the kind of place you want to dawdle.


'AGW: How did you feel about introducing a trailer in an ice house? Jake: When they told me they were going to be screening on a wall of ice it didn’t make any sense to me. I’ve always known ice to be clear. Pretty funny but it’s even funnier now. Everyone is freezing cold. AGW: What can we expect to see in the film that you can tell us about? Jake: Tornados going through Los Angeles, animals, enormous ships where they don’t belong. I’m not sure how much I can reveal. Right now I’m in the coldest room in Los Angeles. Forgive me if my brain is a little slow. AGW: Boy all the glamorous stuff you get to do as an actor. Freezing.. Jake: I have a pretty nice jacket on. Ice is falling on everybody’s head and it’s pretty cold. It’s not as glamorous as people would expect.'


To get a good idea about what this article is describing, here is a video of Jake making this presentation, followed by an interview (with the ice falling on his head). In this interview, Jake discusses why New York City was picked upon to be the centre for the movie. He says that it was because of the many cultures that meet in the city, making it a 'metaphor for the world.'

In this other brief video, also from the same event, Jake touches on what it was like to act in a film with CGI. But just in case there was a risk of Jake getting carried away acting in such a high budget big action movie 'Everytime we'd do something that looked kind of superheroish or special effecty, he'd say [in an accent] 'Do it again!''


To compound the strangeness, The Day After Tomorrow premiered around the world in fake cold and fake snow, regardless of where the premiere may be taking place. Because most countries released the film in May, even in England the fake snow was a bit incongruous. There is a very humorous account (about a third of the way down the feature) of the film's premiere on a hot day in New York City, when bubbly snow lined the carpet - white on this occasion, of course - only to melt, thereby accidentally recreating the film's flood instead. Conditions weren't helped by the weather coming out in sympathy and actually beginning to rain.


'The mercury hit 85 degrees on May 24, but at the American Museum of Natural History, where 20th Century Fox held the premiere for its summer blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, everything was done to make an instant climatological shift covering New York City in ice seem plausible. Real snowdrifts had been created by ice machines and dumped so that they flanked the white carpet-but reality trumped Hollywood when the incongruous mounds began to melt.'


While Jake threw snowballs at Austin Nichols, while apparently aiming at a statue of Teddy Roosevelt, '...more faux snow blasted the crowd from above, but before long it was clear the stuff was actually made from soap bubbles. Paparazzi yowled that their lenses were going be ruined; reporters donned sunglasses during interviews to keep the suds from burning their eyes as several of the movie's stars walked the white carpet under umbrellas held by attendants. "We all look like we have dandruff!" Mr. Gyllenhaal cracked. A reporter asked actress Sela Ward the disaster-themed question of whether she had any regrets in her life. "Only standing in this!" she said of the ice water and soap that blanketed the floor-a Mini-Me version of the mass of dirty water that sweeps Manhattan in the movie.'


'"Wet and cold!" said Emmy Rossum of her time spent in the tank. She plays Mr. Gyllenhaal's love interest. "We were shivering a lot of the time-lots of toweling off-but I can't tell you how fun it was!" "I think I may have been guilty of urinating in the tank," Mr. Nichols confided. "I think there's something cathartic about disaster films," said Mr. Gyllenhaal. "You walk out of the theater and say, 'Oh, thank God-it's still here!'" In the movie, Mr. Gyllenhaal manages to save his love interest from impending doom (oh, as if you didn't know!), but how about in real life? What if he could only save one thing? "A cucumber," the former Columbia student deadpanned. "It's an important vege-er, fruit!"'


'Suddenly he bent down and scooped up some snow. "Want me to throw another one?" he asked. And with that, he formed a tight little ball, cocked his arm back and shouted, "Incoming!"'

Of course, one's immediate reaction to this surreal scene is firstly, is the cucumber a fruit or a vegetable? And, secondly, wouldn't the grape be worth saving first? Thirdly, did this premiere follow a long liquid lunch?


In some of the interviews about The Day After Tomorrow, Jake can't seem to make up his mind about which disaster movies he likes (changing his mind, for instance, about whether he's even seen The Towering Inferno). In this little piece, however, Jake makes clear his admiration for Will Smith, who had starred in Independence day, the previous film by The Day After Tomorrow's director.


Will Smith, of course, was the star of the recent 'I am Legend' film, which also featured a decimated New York City - in a manner reminiscent of the spooky way in which London was deserted in 28 Days. This article catalogues the use of NYC in disaster movies and asks why moviemakers are so irresistibly drawn to destroy NYC on the big screen. This is a long list and I have to own up to having seen the vast majority of them. But it may be worth pointing out that, while NYC is inevitably picked on, other cities across the world (such as London, Paris, Tokyo) are routinely wiped out in these films, even before the opening credits have completed, simply to set the scene and atmosphere!


Roll on Summer! Includes pictures from IHJ.