As WDW hits 7 years old, a catch up with Jake Gyllenhaal and an Italian and Welsh Interlude!

Today is the 7th birthday of Wet Dark and Wild! No longer a toddler, it's definitely moved on to the gin and tonic phase, especially if you consider that blog years are like dog years. They do rhyme, after all. As it is the anniversary, there's no better time than to catch up with Jake Gyllenhaal.

First off, thanks to IHJ, we can see scans of Jake on location for Everest in the June issue of Empire. I love this photo of Jake. Do click on them and they shall be embiggened.

With Everest in the bag, albeit a delayed and we might get to see it eventually bag, Jake is now moving onto other things and at the heart of it all appears to be Southpaw. Jake is in training mode, which can be seen by recent sightings and photos of him at the Mayweather Boxing Club in Las Vegas and at a boxing match. You can see more of these over at IHJ. I do have to say, though, that this is not a role, or a look, that warms the cockles of my heart.

Jake has found the time for other more relaxing pursuits, including dinner with sister Maggie in Santa Monica (I love Maggie's new hairdo) and a trip out to watch old favourites Arcade Fire on 21 April in West Hollywood. Jake looked seriously peeved to be papped so let's leave it with a link.

WDW Italian and Welsh Interludes!

I have been quiet of late due to a) holidaying in Italy and Wales and b) due to eating too many Easter malteser chocolate bunnies. I promised an Italian Interlude in the last post but I was waylaid by Wales, which was beautiful and warm and sunny by day but by night, in a tent, was so cold it introduced a touch of hypothermia to my sunstroke. I thought I'd share a few photos, first Italy (Campania - Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum, Amalfi Coast) and second Wales. I would normally say you'd be able to spot the difference but we visited for the first time on a fabulously sunny day the curious Welsh-Italian coastal town of Portmeirion - better known to me at least as home to The Prisoner - 'I am not a number!' and all that.....

 

Wales...

I hope you all had a good Easter break!

Jake Gyllenhaal catch up - Everest and Enemy

Enemy is now showing to some good reviews across parts of the world, although it's been accompanied by some less good news for Everest. It's release ate has been postponed from February to September 2015. While it will give us the novel experience of a 3D Jake Gyllenhaal, it will be a shame to have to wait an extra seven months. There are more details here. The other Everest news is that it now has two more cast members - Robin Wright and Sam Worthington. This means that Everest will now feature my most favourite actor and my least favourite! This might mean that I have to watch it with one eye closed. More on the casting here.



Talking of Enemy, there is an interview here with its actress Sarah Gadon, which I haven't read as it has spoilers. In this interview with Denis Villeneuve, the director tells us it's perfectly all right to be confused by Enemy. It also contains a great bit from Denis about working with Jake:

'I was looking for an actor, I was looking for a strong actor, English actor — Anglophone, I mean, an English-speaking actor — I was looking for somebody profound, somebody that would have the strength, the ability, the creativity [to take on the role]. And I had seen him in Donnie Darko. I knew that he was playful, willing to do strange things. I knew that he was a strong actor because of Brokeback Mountain. He blew me away how strong he was, I think that is one of the most beautiful performances of the decade, what he did in that film. So difficult and so precise. I love Jake in Jarhead… every time I had seen him on the screen, I was fascinated. I was starting the casting, I learned that he was available, so I took a chance. I just took a chance. I wrote him a big, long letter, sending him the script. And he invited me to drink a glass of wine with him in New York, and we drank the whole bottle, and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I think what interested Jake in the project was not so much the story, but the process. What we will try to do with this movie.'

There is another clip from Enemy here.

I am off to Italy for a week tomorrow so I'll catch up with you properly when I'm back! Have a good week!

*UPDATED* Jake Gyllenhaal on Strombo Tonight, plus more interviews and details on the filming of Everest

Updated to add the video!



How wonderful to hear Jake talk about Brokeback Mountain again.

Also, thanks so much to IHJ for this video from the set of Enemy



Jake Gyllenhaal gave the Oscars a miss this year. Although this meant that he couldn't be part of the attempt to break Twitter or to deal out the pizza, it did mean he was free to continue making a potential future nominee, Everest. This Wednesday, though, Jake's appearance on the 'George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight' show airs. There are details here and there are also a couple of clips, which can be seen in this post.

Last week, was featured in a substantial interview with IndieWire, in which Jake talked about his craft and evolution as an actor as well as the impact of his Villeneuve collaborations on his career. Enemy might be getting a small release but it's a loud one, I'm glad to say.

Filming Enemy presented an entirely new challenge for Jake - having to be two people: 'Every day was an experiment in those kinds of emotions. And when I acted with myself, Denis set aside three days for the first time we meet each other to really discover that. We would discover during the day what was going on. We would start on one side and we would shoot that side, and I felt a little more comfortable playing Adam, the professor character, because he was more of a solid guy and so I'd play that. We would just play man.'

And Jake on the actor he has become: 'I've become a lot more obsessed with the specificity of characters and like you said, my work, the choices I make, also being on stage was a really big evolution for me. Getting back on stage last year, I will again next year, to me, being a part of... I don't know... I just feel more alive in what I'm doing.'

'I can't explain it in any way, except the relationships I make with the people I make movies with matters to me the most and how we interact. I'm about to go do this movie about Everest with Baltasar Kormakur, directing the movie, and I know the relationship we have there, like, we will explore. I will listen to him and what he needs and then I'll go into unknown territory for him as a result. I don't now what that's about. I don't know what happened. I just know I went like, "Oh, now's the time." There's no other time but now to go do it. I'm going to make a bold choice and if someone doesn't want it they can cut it out.' You can read the rest, here. 

Jake has also been talking to W about his first cinema crush!

Updated to add: Thanks to Leslie for the heads up for this audio interview with Jake at Q. You can listen to it here.

Everest

Meanwhile, Clive Standen has been talking about filming Everest in the Dolomites: 'We've been working on it for about three weeks now - we've been filming right at the top of the Dolomites at minus 20 celsius and it's tough but it's lots of fun. Lots of men stuck up a mountain and helicopters and we've been doing lots of mountaineering and climbing training. I think it's going to be a good one." He added: "I just finished doing some scenes with Josh Brolin and he's a joy to work with. He's a fantastic actor and I feel really lucky to be a part of this project."' This beautiful set photo is from Clive's Twitter feed.

Everest's producer Tim Bevan has also been talking about the logistics of the film to Empire. Hopefully, we'll hear much more soon.

Jake Gyllenhaal scales Everest - in Italy - and a new NSFW trailer for Enemy

Clearly inspired by the Winter Olympics, Jake Gyllenhaal is in the mountains this week to take part in the filming event. Jake is in Italy to film Everest and, just in case there's any danger of forgetting which mountain he's trying to climb, it's written on his hat.

Apart from being considerably overdressed compared to everyone else, I am rather concerned to see that instead of playing the role of one of the mountain's climbers, Jake has instead been cast as Yeti.

Earlier in the week, Jake was allowed down from the mountain to take a look round Rome, including St Peter's. Apologies for the Mail link. I should like to point out to Jake that he's a few months early - I won't be back in Rome until the summer.

Jake took time out of Everest to appear on the cover of Man of the World. In the interview, Jake talked about the importance of working with certain directors: 'Gyllenhaal says he feels more comfortable working with certain directors. "It's all about a level of commitment—how far will you go for a director you believe in? How far will you go for a story you believe in? I've always worked as hard as I can on everything I've done. But now I feel like I'm listening to myself and realizing that we have a finite amount of time, and how you spend it is really important."

Also this week, a new trailer appeared for Enemy. This one is the Not Safe For Work Variety so hold on...

Many thanks to IHJ for the great pics! There are lots more there.

A new poster for Enemy, an Everest update (filming in the UK) and Prisoners is out on DVD in the UK on Monday!

The excitement for Enemy is building! Today we have another new poster for the film which is really rather wonderful. You can click on it to embiggen it. This is from the twitter for @A24Films which today tweeted: 'New ENEMY one-sheet is a beauty. Opens in NY 3/15, exclusive premiere on @DIRECTV 2/6'. This is over a month before its theatrical release and is not too far away at all!

Director Denis Villeneuve talks about the poster at Entertainment Weekly today: 'The poster for the film is an equally disorienting visual that ignores its leading man’s celebrity. “Enemy for me is really an artistic piece,” says Villeneuve. “It was done with no compromises, a real act of cinema. And I think the poster reflects that idea, that it’s about exploration of identity. Sometimes, it’s very healthy to make cinema with just art in mind and you don’t think about the box-office. What I love about [the distributor] A24 and the poster they came up with is that it totally reflects that.”' To go with it is a video interview with Jake Gyllenhaal from TIFF last Autumn.

Many thanks to IHJ for recently uploading new still from Enemy, including one which features one of my favourite sights - Jake on a motorbike. Perhaps not showing Jake at his best but it'll do me... There are more images there.

Everest update

An interesting snippet can be found in a new article about Everest this week. 'According to Nepali Times, “Lama and a group of 12 real-life Sherpas are off to Val Paradiso in Italy to do the outdoor part of the shoot in a make-believe Mt Everest. After that Lama will go to Pinewood Studios near London to film his role of the rescue inside a Ecureuil simulato The movie will be shooted in a studio not in actual Everest. None of actor will visit Nepal in course for shooting.'

So outdoors filming in Italy and the rest in the UK and none in Nepal at all!

And finally...

Meanwhile, a note to all readers in the UK, remember Prisoners is out on DVD and blu ray on Monday (3 February!).

Jake Gyllenhaal begins filming on (or near or somewhere else) Everest plus a video catchup

The Golden Globes came and went, as did the Oscar nominations, with not much love expressed for Prisoners, bar a nomination for Roger Deakins for his cinematography on the film (following Roger's nomination for a Critics Choice Award). However, not to be downhearted about it, Jake Gyllenhaal took off to Nepal and the Everest Base Camp to a) begin making the movie Everest and b) hunt for Yeti. Or did he?



According to Raw Story, a government official in Nepal has confirmed that Jake did arrive in the country, staying in a five star hotel in Kathmandu. 'A local agent applied for permission on behalf of Baltasar Kormakur to shoot ‘Everest’ and received the permission three days ago,” communications ministry official Umakant Parajuli told AFP. Parajuli said the team was permitted to shoot in the Himalayan nation for two weeks.'



However, EW has said that Jake headed off to Italy and not Nepal to begin production on Everest : 'When it comes to ascending a summit, first to the top usually wins. News this week confirmed that Working Title’s Everest, to be released by Universal, is a go. The film, from director Baltasar Kormákur (2 Guns) began production Monday in Italy, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke and John Hawkes playing four of the climbers who attempted the disastrous 1996 ascent of Mount Everest in the Himalayas, only to be thwarted with terrible conditions that led to the loss of many lives.' It appears that the film is also winning the battle of the Everest movies!

Meanwhile photos of Jake running for taxis and trains in New York City this week suggest he might be enduring quite a commute, to wherever he's commuting.



Thanks very much to IHJ for the videos from the New York Times, Toronto and W magazine!

Happy New Year! Jake Gyllenhaal back to Toronto and news on Enemy and Everest

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful turn of the year and are coping with the return to work and/or the weather.

The snow and ice might have prevented the red carpet event from taking place in Toronto yesterday, but Jake Gyllenhaal and Denis Villeneuve still made it to up to the city for Canada's Top 10 Film Festival. They took part in an In Conversation... with TIFF's Cameron Bailey, which gave Jake the golden opportunity to give us an update on his hairyness. Thanks very much to IHJ for the photos!

Prisoners continues to gather interest. This means new interviews appear all the time, including this one with Screendaily.

Ben Stiller has been demonstrating what a man of good taste he is with his recent comments about Jake following a screening of Prisoners: 'I find Jake Gyllenhaal a very interesting young actor - very dark, handsome, magnetic. I like him.' We like you, too, Ben.

Enemy has also progress. It now has a release date in the US of 14 March, so not long at all. Hopefully, the rest of the world won't be far behind.

Everest, meanwhile, is due to start filming in just a few days, on 13 January. We hear that 'Filming for Everest is expected to mainly take place in Val Senales, Trentino Alto-Adige, Italy. Everest will hit the big screen on December 19 in the US, while the UK does not yet have an official release date.' That's what I call a birthday present!

Jake Gyllenhaal attacked by a mirror but it doesn't get in the way of a full weekend! Plus an Everest update

What a week! It started off with all the sirens going off when Jake Gyllenhaal got into a scrap with a mirror which decided to attack him and his left hand on the set of Nightcrawler. Luckily a few stitches were required but that was it. I would like to have words with all of those news reports that put 'hospitalised' into their attention grabbing, panicky headlines without due care and attention. There are a few more details here.

But Jake and his hand both appeared at the Variety screening of Prisoners at the Arclight Hollywood on Friday. You can read more here at the Mail.

Jake also made an appearance at the Academy Governors Awards on Saturday to watch Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin and Angelina Jolie collect honorary Oscars.

At the Awards Jake had the honour of sitting next to no less a personage than Harrison Ford! This does make me feel a little weak at the knees.

You can spot Jake (and Mr Ford) at the end of this video. Many thanks to Eureka for passing on the link.



Everest update

Since the news that Everest had run into some financial problems (the movei not the mountain), there has been an update from Deadline. Financial backing is now in place and filming will start on 13 January in Italy before moving on to Nepal and Iceland. This might be the one Christmas when Jake does hope for some extra thick woolly socks.

Thanks to IHJ for the pics! There are more there including photos of Jake visiting the Medical Center in Beverly Hills. For once, one can guess what it might have been about! Hope you mend soon, Jake.

Jake Gyllenhaal - Out of the Woods and Into the Mountains - and a WDW Roman Interlude

Today came the news that Jake Gyllenhaal will not be heading Into the Woods after all. Despite the undoubted appeal - at least to many of his fans - of frolicking in the woods with a Disney princess while singing with the birds, Jake has put an axe into this film's hopes and instead plans to don his crampons, grab his grappling hooks and ascend Everest instead. And why? Because it's there.

The news of Everest came from Deadline:Featuring Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Jake Gyllenhaal and Jason Clarke aim to start shooting Everest in November, directed by Baltasar Komakur.  The film is 'based on the 1996 disastrous expedition to scale Mount Everest. Three different expeditions were hit by a sudden blinding storm and by the time it was all over, eight climbers died. The tale was first made famous by Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, his first-person account of being among the lucky ones to make it back down the mountain. This film will be sourced from various books and interviews with survivors.' Whether this means that Jake has to eat someone is as yet unknown. 

More details come from the Guardian: Clarke is being sought to play New Zealand climber Rob Hall, leader of one of the teams, while Gyllenhaal is set to play Scott Fischer, his opposite number with the other expedition. Brolin is in line to play a doctor named Beck Weathers, who is forced to spend a night on Everest, while Hawkes (The Sessions) will be cast as a slow climber who causes his team to be late setting out on their journey up the peak. The project was previously in play with Christian Bale as Hall, but the British-born actor no longer seems to be involved. Kormákur hopes to shoot the film in Iceland in October.'

So back to Iceland! Clearly, Jake's efforts with Bear Grylls for Man vs Wild has given Jake a taste for extreme adventure and one can bet that Everest will not be all CGI.

Confirmation that Jake was leaving Into the Woods came from The Wrap which reported that the filming schedule of Nightcrawler in early October meant that Jake would have no time to romp in the woods. Instead, Jake will play a' small-time Los Angeles criminal who gets a little too swept up in the nocturnal world of the city's crime journalism community'. I think I prefer the singing in the woods... 

As for Everest, let's just hope we get a glimpse behind the goggles... Thanks to IHJ for the pics!

A WDW Roman Interlude

Last weekend I returned from Rome having had a fantastic time, leaving no Roman ruin unexplored and no wine unsampled. As well as photos, I also brought back with me the longest and hottest English heatwave in several years. So, here are a few images from my week among the ruins in the Eternal City and Ostia, Rome's ancient port.

Until the next time!