Empire: Jake 'has to be able to take his clothes off and look good!' - and a Cornish Interlude

The July issue of Empire magazine hit the shops today. I don't have access to a scanner at the moment and so, to illustrate the article, please find instead pictures from Port Isaac in Cornwall. Brits may recognise this beautiful village and harbour as the setting for Doc Martin. I recommend the fish and chips, set off by the brass band that walks through the steep streets followed by a crowd that can't quite believe what it's seeing.


'Anyone who's even spent five minutes toying with Prince of Persia's source material - Jordan Mechner's 2003 remake of his own 1989 Atari game - will have an inkling of the physical challenges that await Jake Gyllenhaal as its titular royal, Dastan. Before anyone outside of France has even heard the word 'parkour', the pixelled Prince was running along vertical surfaces, divinf across spiked pits, ducking under mechanical swinging blades... Ramparts, dungeons and elaborate, Indiana-Jonesian deathtraps were all his playground.



Although not if director Mike Newell is playing. 'I did actually once manage to get him three steps horizontally along a wall before he fell off', chuckles Newell... 'Big afternoon that was!''... Not only will it feature a wealth of acrobatic action as Dastan takes on shadowy assassin cult The Hanssansin in a fantasised sixth-century Persia, key to the plot is The Dagger of Time, a magical weapon/MacGuffin that allows its wielder to reverse time. In this advernture, Newell assures us much is at stake.'


''This isn't just kind of kiss kiss, bang bang,' he insists. 'Not at all. It's like a sort of superheated, superactioned Noah story. It's what happens when the gods get angry and get so fed up with human beings they want to rub them out and start all over again. But then - and I can't remember where exactly this comes from, even though I used to know the Bible off by heart because I heard it six days a week when I was younger! - there is this wonderful line which says: 'So long as there is just this one man, you can't kill us all'...'


'Of course, that 'one man' requires special qualities, qualities which Newell believe Gyllenhaal possesses in abundance. 'He has to be able to ride. He has to be able to fight. He has to be able to take his clothes off and look good!' Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, seems happy with taking on such a legendary destiny. 'I'm always fascinated with these kinds of stories of the hero's journey,' he says. 'You're playing a legitimate hero, you know? I think it's an honour to do that.''


I was rather taken by the name of this tea shop...


Includes pictures from WDW and Empire.