Jake Gyllenhaal continues filming Prisoners and is another cowboy role on the cards?

At the risk of interfering with serious chocolate ingestion and snow shovelling, I thought I'd take this holiday opportunity to a) bemoan the lack of Jake Gyllenhaal sightings and b) post the little information that we have about what Jake's been up to over the last few days. Filming continues on Prisoners in Georgia. Ironically, the best report we have had from the set is when the cameras moved indoors away from the hubbub of the streets. When Prisoners moved into his home, the owner kindly posted some information on it as well as some photos.

     

 Jake has, however, had a break from filming. He was spotted last Sunday in Frankies in NYC. After the small world coincidence of recording the audiobook for The Great Gatsby, to complement the movie starring friends Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, there is another coincidence brewing on the sidelines. There are reports that Jake is among the actors being considered to star in Jane Got a Gun in which another friend and co-star of Jake's - Natalie Portman. This western features Natalie as a woman on the run from her nasty husband. Originally, that role was to have gone to Jude Law but now that he's dropped out it could go to Jake - or to Tobey. Yet again, Hollywood seems to think that these two actors are interchangeable, especially in movies starring Natalie Portman.

 Wouldn't it be good to see Jake wearing a cowboy hat again?

 

Jake Gyllenhaal records audiobook of The Great Gatsby to accompany the movie release starring friend Carey Mulligan

It is no secret that Jake Gyllenhaal is a treat for the senses. Not only for our eyes (obviously) and noses (less obviously), but also for our ears. Just as well we have two of them. Earlier this month, we had a sniff of rumour that Jake had recorded an audiobook using his voice. It turns out that this rumour had legs - Jake has indeed recorded an audiobook and it's nothing less than one of my favourite books The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, recorded for Audible.

This is designed to accompany the latest Hollywood dramatisation of the novel which stars Leo DiCaprio and Jake's good friend and Brothers' co-star Carey Mulligan. We don't forget that Jake even celebrated Carey's wedding to Marcus Mumford in wellies in a barn in Somerset last year. Surely recording an audiobook for her film is the least Jake could do.

I have just heard (thanks Susan!) that Tobey Maguire is also in The Great Gatsby and that Jake May be reading his part of Nick Carraway ('a Midwesterner turned New York salesman')! When we say that it's a small world, it really is...

The recording is available to buy for your digital device on 9 April (I'm assuming that 04-09-13 is written the American way...) and one hopes that it will also work on this side of the pond. The unfortunate news is that the novel is only 115 pages long and not the length of the 1086 edition of Doomsday. But 115 pages is better than nothing and maybe all my ears can cope with before my eardrums explode with the pressure of the excitement.

Pic source: ebay and thanks to Susan for the perfume information! Scans from IHJ.

An Enemy is screened and a look back at Jake Gyllenhaal's top 10 movies

An Enemy has had its first screenings. This film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, features not one but two Jake Gyllenhaals, Double Jake, not surprising then that we're especially keen to see it! And Jake - with Jake. The screening took place in the city of filming, Toronto. As you'd expect, details of the viewing are less than scarce (embargo forms will do that) but there are hints.

A tweeter tweeted that 'Jake was really good' but that the film was unfinished, although it did have some music in it. An unfinished film is not a film at its best and so there are criticisms. 'Weird and confusing'. But to distract from that are 'a few love scenes'. Thanks to Mermon for the link!

Meanwhile, Prisoners continues filming in Atlanta. You can read here of details of interior sets and night time filming. At this rate, Jake and Hugh Jackman will becoming quite a fixture in the streets of Atlanta.

On Monday, End of Watch was released on DVD and blu ray in the UK. This prompted Female First - longtime fans and supporters of Jake - to take a look at Jake's Top 10 films in chronological order. I especially like what the article has to say about Brokeback Mountain:

'Brokeback Mountain remains the best performance of Gyllenhaal's career to date as he and Heath Ledger lit up the big screen. The role of Jack Twist was a bold one for Gyllenhaal but it paid off as this is a rich and moving story that placed the gay love story in the mainstream. Both Gyllenhaal and Ledger deliver devastating performances as two men who struggle to hide what they truly are - this was a masterful movie.'

No mention for Zodiac but then you can't have everything. An interesting collection of films which shows just how varied Jake's career has been to date.

Thanks to IHJ for new old pictures, including extra ones from what has to be the worst ever of Jake's photoshoots! As such, it's one of my favourites. There are also photos from Jake's appearance in 2000 at the premiere of Leo DiCaprio's The Beach.

End of Watch UK DVD/blu ray release and an Italian Interlude

Buona sera! I have made it back to Blighty, having torn myself reluctantly from a most beautiful part of Italy, that insisted on feeding me good food and good wines while regaling me with culture, archaeology and a good dose of sunshine. Flying back over snow-covered northern Europe made it that little bit harder to come home. If you can stand it, a few photos will follow in an interlude further down the post. I recommend looking at them while quaffing Limoncello.

With filming of Prisoners entering its home straight, End of Watch will hopefully gain a new lease of life in the UK next week. On Monday the DVD and blu ray is released at last, which means I can finally see the film again, trying hard not to shut my eyes at the scary bits. There's a good review over at IGN.

As a result of this, new deleted scenes have been released. One is posted at HeyUGuys while the one below is from Total Film.

Jake Gyllenhaal also appeared in Metro this week answering five questions. Thanks to IHJ for the scan below. You can also read Jake's answers here. I do like this one on the importance of friends:

'With my best friends in the world, we express our love for each other through a whole lot of p***-taking and that’s what this movie conveys. Everybody needs a good friend. Romance and marriage are important but to have a friend you can use as a mirror or a blackboard or whatever, with an objective point of view, that is really important too.'

WDW Campania Interlude

I can't do credit to the beauty and culture of Campania in a few photos but here is just a taster of what we saw over the last few days in one of the most stunning regions of the world I've been too. Gems included Naples, Capri, Sorrento, Positano and Amalfi as well as two places I have always wanted to visit. A life long ambition has been achieved - Herculaneum and Pompeii. I'll be doing a full post on our visit to the two sites shortly on For Winter Nights but there's a taster here. The two best shots were taken by Mr WDW so thanks to him! The warm sunshine also helped...

Jake Gyllenhaal to stop traffic in Atlanta and Maggie's in good voice

As we head in to March, movie making season steps up a notch, leaving the dreak, bleak and dark award season behind to history. Jake Gyllenhaal is busy at work filming Prisoners, breaking off occasionally to eat and drink. The next big bout of filming has been announced and it looks like that from 19-22 March Jake will be doing something that comes entirely natural to him - stopping traffic. The Buzz reports that Prisoners is moving to the Atlanta Medical Center South Campus - tentatively.

This evening co-star Hugh Jackman tweeted: 'We are halfway done filming Prisoners in Atlanta.... Can't wait for you all to see it. Love working with our entire cast and crew.' Watching Hugh and Jake publicise this film together is going to be well worth the wait.

Of course, Jake can't be on set all the time and today came a tweet that made my ears stick up: 'Of course Jake Gyllenhaal recorded an audio book at my office yesterday when I wasn't there.' Just the idea of Jake recording an audiobook... the perfect accompaniment to long journeys, sleepless nights, even jogging. Let's just hope it's a book of at least the length of Moby Dick. Mind you, let's not rule out a kiddie book involving lots of farm animal noises. Any preferences?

It's normally Jake that we associate with singing and potential musicals but it was announced this week that sister Maggie will be performing 'songs from the new musical 'Fun Home' at the Sundance Institute Theatre Program Benefit in New York City on April 8'. I would put money on Jake being there to cheer Maggie along. At the moment, Maggie is hard at work filming Frank across the sea in southern Ireland, in a very beautiful part of the world. I hope she has a good set of wellies.

IHJ has been doing a brilliant job keeping us entertained in these quiet days with more new old pictures, including one below from when it all began - back in Knoxville in 1999 and the premiere of October Sky.

I hope you all have a  great rest of the week. I'm heading off away to Italy for a few days - Naples, Capri and fulfilling my lifelong ambition of visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum. There should be lots of wifi so I will be about and will no doubt bombard you with interlude photos on my return!

A catch up with Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman in Atlanta and more on Prisoners

Oscars come, Oscars go and it was not to be in 2013. While Jake Gyllenhaal (and myself, come to think of it) gave the awards a miss, no doubt he was watching, cheering on his Prisoners co-star, the Well-Voiced Hugh Jackman, and cheering along with the rest of us as Anne Hathaway and Ang Lee won their Academy Awards. Many congratulations to Anne and Ang - Brokeback Mountain's representatives did very well indeed.

A few years ago it was very different and back in 2008, I headed over to LA to share in a little bit of the Oscar excitement, doing my best to gatecrash the biggest party of the year, The Night Before Party, at the the Beverly Hills Hotel. I won't forget it as long as I live. Here's the link for those who haven't seen it. More of that Oscars roadtrip is here.  Happy days!

Jake is, of course, hard at work making Prisoners in Georgia. You can find some more information and photos from the set here. Just a couple of days after singing on stage in LA, Hugh Jackman was back on set with Jake.

There is plenty of information here on the film itself and the team behind it. There are big names, not least cinematographer Roger Deakins. There is also more on the story and Detective Loki's part in it.

'How far would you go to protect your child? Keller Dover (Jackman) is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street. Heading the investigation, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) arrests its driver, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but a lack of evidence forces the only suspect’s release.

Knowing his child’s life is at stake, the frantic Dover decides he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands. The desperate father will do whatever it takes to find the girls, but in doing so, he may lose himself, begging the question: When do you cross the line between seeking justice and becoming a vigilante?'

Thanks are due to IHJ for some new old photos of Jake, which do so much to us keep us going at these relatively quiet days. Rendition Jake is always a welcome bonus!

Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum melt the ice

At the New York premiere for Beautiful Creatures this week, Interview magazine asked the lovely Emmy Rossum for embarrassing memories from when she was 16 years old:

"I was filming The Day After Tomorrow, it was my first big film, and I had to kiss Jake Gyllenhaal, so I was really nervous. The night before, I got a big zit and, stupidly, I picked at it, so then it was bigger and infected and had a scab over it. Jake called it my ‘third eye,'" Rossum recalled. Her 16-year-old self was crushed —"He's never going to want to kiss me now!"

In an earlier interview for USA Weekend (the link now no longer exists except in the WDW archives), we were told: 'This 19-year-old is no wallflower. When she met hunky star Jake Gyllenhaal one morning a few years ago, Rossum pulled a move worthy of the Phantom. "I went over to him and said, 'Look, I know it's 9 a.m., but is it OK if I kiss you?' " Rossum recalls. When he consented ("He said, 'It's never too early!' "), she obliged. "I knew if I didn't do it, it would seem like I was scared. And I wanted to kiss him. He's very, very cute."'

There's more from A Girl's World on what it was like to work with Jake.

'Fantastic! He’s a fantastic guy. He’s very intelligent. It was funny because I was kind of like the only girl on the set. There was Mark Gordon, our producer, Roland, Jake, Dennis Quaid and me. So, he’s like the big brother I never had. So it was really nice. We also work in kind of a similar way. We both put a lot of emphasis on preparation but then we get there and we kind of let it rip and are intuitive in a lot of ways within the bounds of the character and the arc. I think we work really well together.... He’s quite goofy in reality. I think we were so cold and wet and shivering most of the time that nobody had enough energy to pull pranks after running through that tank 500 times in one day with Roland going ‘do it again’! But he’s very much positive. He has a lot of positive energy.'

There's another account of the audition with less kissing: 'I definitely auditioned. I went in and sat on the bench next to all the other girls that were auditioning. I wasn’t given any kind of special treatment by any means. I got a meeting with Roland and Mark, went in and read for them, got a screen test with Jake, went in and I did that. I knew that that screen test was the moment when I had to prove myself. That’s when you’ve gotta show it. You’ve gotta bring it. I think that anybody can run through water but not necessarily anybody can run through water while bringing the heart and emotion to the character.'

As for making chemistry: 'There was no choice for me. It was gonna be there. It also wasn’t difficult. He’s terribly attractive. So it wasn’t like the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my whole life but, at the same time, I think the heat had to be there. Somebody had to melt the ice! (laughter).'

Thanks to IHJ for the last new old picture from the Berlin photocall for The Day After Tomorrow.

My review of Lincoln on MovieBrit.