Jake Gyllenhaal supports the Oscar top ten, Natalie Portman reminisces, and Sir Ben Kingsley speaks PoP

The American Academy's decision to widen its best film category to include ten films has caused controversy. There are arguments for and against. Jake Gyllenhaal has expressed an opinion for: '"I believe in a year where you would have 'Up in the Air' and 'Precious' alongside 'Avatar' and 'Up,' I think all it does is bring more attention to the smaller films maybe people wouldn't see," said Jake Gyllenhaal, a 2005 Oscar nominee for "Brokeback Mountain."' I couldn't agree more. Anne Hathaway announces the nominations tomorrow.


A great interview with Natalie Portman in Playboy UK reveals a little more about the background to her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal and it's time for me to learn something new. Natalie was yet another of the people in Jake's life that he found through his brave decision to take to the London boards with This Is Our Youth. We know that Sam Mendes, Roland Emmerich and John Madden were all inspired to cast Jake in their films as a direct result of seeing him on stage. But from it, Jake also got a longlasting friendship with Natalie. Many thanks to Shoe89 for the headsup!


'And Jake I met, seeing his play in London, This Is Our Youth. Which he was phenomenal in. Playboy: Did you go back stage and say hi? Portman: Yeah. And then we became friends. And we've been really close ever since. So yeah, it was really a great opportunity.'

And Natalie, like some of us, maybe, thinks that more than a kiss may have been in order between her Grace and Jake's Tommy. 'Playboy: Did you feel like there should have been more sexuality going on between your character and Jake as your brother-in-law? It seemed a bit tame… Portman: Yeah, definitely. Just a kiss seems so... not a big deal these days! But yeah, of course in those circumstances, it was a huge deal. And if they had gone further you wonder, could they have ever recovered from that. And would you like forgive any of the characters. It's such a massive trespass.'

'Playboy: Finally, we must ask, Jake or Tobey? Portman: Um...All day long!' More here.


Ben Kinglsey - sorry, Sir Ben Kingsley - has been talking to IGN about his dastardly rrole in Prince of Persia: 'I really liked the character. Because of my years in Shakespeare, I really enjoy mining into the character, digging into the character to find out why he is what he is. Hoe he became. So in my portrayal of the uncle, Nizam, I was able -- very happily and enjoyably with Mike Newell -- to go into the script and speculate, "I see why he is this way. I see why his behavior is that way. I see how he's motivated and what drives him." So Mike Newell, being the lovely director he is, turned a plot-driven piece into a character-driven piece. It was very, very appealing to me and then it becomes, honestly, like any other film that one is enjoying making. You didn't feel the crushing weight of franchise, of Jerry Bruckheimer who really let us go, let us get on with it. We just got on with the job of telling a straight story with Mike Newell. It became a character-drive piece, which was tremendously enjoyable for me.'


'IGN: Did you get to do any action sequences? Kingsley: Oh, I do a lot of my own stunts. I do a lot of my own fights. I had a wonderful climbing sequence and I did a lot of that myself. Not too much of my horse-riding -- I'm nervous of horses -- but a lot of the other stuff I did, yeah. I had a great fight trainer. Great stunt guys to work with so that was very exciting.'


I do get the feeling that Prince of Persia was fun all round. And Dastan is hot. This evening, while walking home, something caught my eye as I strolled past a cinema - a big poster of Dastan, flourishing his blades and armour at me and insisting I see his movie - I will... I will...

Sunday's pictures of Jake going out for lunch with Maggie, Peter and Ramona are so wonderful - the perfect antidote to Mondays - but I thought here I'd zoom in on two things that caught my eye - bedhead hair and bedhair laces.




Inclides pictures from IHJ.