Jake Gyllenhaal goes back to work - and looking back: finding films and loving films

It may be Friday, but for Jake Gyllenhaal it's a case of back to work to start filming Love and Other Drugs in Pittsburgh. It's already made the local Pitt News. 'Jake Gyllenhaal, Hank Azaria and about 300 other people will be on campus filming a romantic comedy today... Production crews arrived at the Pitt Athletic Association, next to Alumni Hall, around 4 this morning to begin setting up equipment and testing lighting. Filming began several hours later and will continue until at least 7 p.m.'


'Around 10 a.m. this morning, crews were filming in the Athletic Association's bowling alley. Azaria was on set, and a sea of extras in black shirts reading "Doc's" surrounded him. Stand-ins for Gyllenhaal and Azaria stood behind the cameras waiting for a gap in the filming, when they'd be asked to stand still for an hour, or sometimes more, holding positions so crews could check the lighting.'


'Scott Levine, a publicist for the film, said he thought today would probably be the only day the crew was on campus. He said he expects thinks the film will come out in 2010, but that it's too early to tell for sure. Filming, he guessed, would probably end shortly after Thanksgiving.'


Memory Lane

A wonderful new profile of Jake Gyllenhaal landed on YouTube today. Full of clips I've never seen before, and snippets from interviews some of which I've not heard before, it's a delight for the senses. It starts at the beginning and charts an incredible ten-year career and hints that, with Prince of Persia, Jake is on the edge of something very big indeed.



On Brokeback Mountain's sexual content: 'But it was written in such a way that it wasn't vulgar or obvious. It was a real physical connection between these two people, and I have a real issue with films when sexuality or sex is used as a kind of thing to just watch. This had real meaning. It really pushed the story along and to me I will do pretty much almost anything if the story is beautiful enough and says something important enough. I'll take that risk cos I feel like it's just not worth it unless you take these risks.'


'These are two people who are lonely and looking for a connection and happened to find it with each other at a certain time when it's just not ok but love is found in the oddest of places. And I think that's what it's about and that's really what it was about for me when I read it.'


On Jake's films of 2005: 'I care a lot about the films I've done in the past year and they mean a lot to me. And it's a really great feeling. Comfortable? I enjoy hearing and worry about hearing what people feel about them as they mean a lot to me but yeah it feels comfortable.'


On his different way of working from David Fincher: 'My preference is love. My preference is working in the emotional world. David works in another way, which is definitely obsessive and that's what this movie's about. That's why it was amazing to make. That's why I think... ultimately, I say that's my preference but you always have to go to places that you're afraid of and the world of David Fincher was definitely something I was afraid of. And so I gravitate towards that in terms of having the ability to learn from that. David's world is procedural, this world that he's created is very procedural and lengthy and slow-paced and eats at you and it's a slow painful death this movie in a lot of ways - in the best possible way! Because it asks a lot of its audience.'


'I assume the audience to be very intelligent. Maybe that's not necessarily the smartest thing on my part but I really think they are and I think that an audience finding a movie or loving a movie isn't necessarily in the present moment always. And I've had that experience a lot of times too.'


And finally...

We're heard about the McFarlane fully articulated toy figures of Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan. Well, here we get a glimpse of a six-feet tall version. Needless to say I'll take at least one. Finding room for a life-sized camel may be more awkward.


Jordan Mechner, the creator of Prince of Persia, has had a sneak preview of the movie trailer and happily tweeted that it was 'awesome'. One wonders if the trailer will be around in the holiday season.