(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Jake Gyllenhaal on playing dark characters and losing 30 pounds for his role as a sleazy ambulance chaser in Nightcrawler Jake Gyllenhaal has a razor-thin scar on the palm of his hand. It’s a permanent souvenir from the set of Nightcrawler the Toronto International Film Festival thriller in which the actor plays a twisted crime paparazzo. The film premiered on Friday at the festival.
On the Los Angeles shoot last fall director Dan Gilroy was filming Gyllenhaal’s character Lou simmering alone in a house. “We were in the middle of a scene with a mirror” Gyllenhaal recalls. “I hit the mirror.”
The violent act wasn’t in the script and Gyllenhaal still isn’t sure what propelled him to do it. “It was just a choice in that moment that happened” says Gyllenhaal who accidentally sliced open his hand on a shard of glass.
Doctors at Cedars-Sinai eventually stopped the bleeding and stitched him up and Gyllenhaal returned to work eight hours later with his wrist wrapped in gauze.
Gyllenhaal’s career trajectory has cut just as deep. Four years ago the 33-year-old made a professional U-turn. He left behind popcorn movies like Prince of Persia and The Day After Tomorrow and decided he wanted to work only with directors who pushed him out of his comfort zone. He veered toward edgier material like 2012’s End of Watch in which he played an L.A. cop; 2013’s Prisoners portraying an obsessed detective; and the head-scratcher Enemy as a pair of mysterious twins.
His new direction may have taken some by surprise but audiences and critics are responding well to his gonzo side.
“A lot of people see Jake as a nice young Jewish kid from Beverly Hills” says Antoine Fuqua who cast him as a professional boxer in the upcoming release Southpaw. “I said ‘Nah!’ He’s a man now. There’s something in his eyes that people don’t see. He’s got anger in him.”
Gyllenhaal grew up in an industry family — his father Stephen is a veteran film and TV director; his mother Naomi Foner is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter; and his older sister Maggie is of course a movie star too — and he made his acting debut at 11 as Billy Crystal’s kid in 1991’s City Slickers.
When Gyllenhaal first broke out as an actor he was best known for dramatic roles in smaller movies like 2001’s Donnie Darko and 2002’s The Good Girl. He also appeared in 2005 hit Brokeback Mountain for which he received a supporting actor Oscar nomination. “I never would have thought the movie would have gotten the response that it did” Gyllenhaal says. “It was a life-changing story and career changing for all of us. It was inexplicable.”
Gyllenhaal has returned to his roots with his latest roles even if it means taking smaller paycheques. “I don’t have my own family right now” he says. “I have an opportunity to make those choices.”
Charm offensive
Nightcrawler centres on Lou a fast-talking sleazeball who chases ambulances to catch footage of accident victims on his camcorder. Gyllenhaal walks the difficult line of making heinous look charming insisting the film wouldn’t work if audiences don’t root for its antihero.
“The script seemed really political to me in a subversive way” he says.
The story touches on the idea of privacy in an Internet age — and the proliferation of tabloid journalism in even serious news organisations. But Gyllenhaal was most taken by the poetic soliloquies in the script (by Gilroy). He memorised every sentence of dialogue before the 28-day nocturnal shoot through the streets of Los Angeles.
Gyllenhaal who is also a producer on Nightcrawler had the radical idea of making Lou look gaunt which meant he had to drop 30 pounds from his 180-pound frame.
When the film’s trailer debuted over the summer his physical transformation shocked the blogosphere.
“I would try to eat as few calories as possible” he says. “Physically it showed itself but chemically and mentally I think it was even a more fascinating journey.”
Gyllenhaal would run 15 miles from his house to the set in the evenings to stay lanky. The inspiration for the fast-talking character came from the animal world.
“There was a general sense that he was a coyote” Gyllenhaal says. “I just wanted to live that way.”
Gyllenhaal admits that playing a dark character like Lou will sometimes sneak into his dreams. “I always have nightmares” he says before catching himself. “I don’t really believe in nightmares. I don’t believe the things that scare us are in our dreams. I think they are us communicating with ourselves. Even if I’m scared I think they are helpful sometimes.”
He opens up about how his parents’ divorce in 2009 affected him. “My father got remarried and my mother moved to New York” says Gyllenhaal who relocated to New York to be close to her.
“My family became a different entity and I think a more honest one. My family is so strong right now” Gyllenhaal says. “In a way that’s given me the strength to say trust yourself.”
On a Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh where he’s about to wrap Southpaw Gyllenhaal is drenched in sweat on a gym treadmill. He also has Everest in which he plays a climber waylaid by a snowstorm out next year and he’ll soon begin shooting Demolition directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) about an investment banker whose life crumbles when his wife dies tragically.
After that he’ll make his Broadway debut in Nick Payne’s Constellations in December while his sister Maggie performs down the street in The Real Thing. Gyllenhaal’s arms and torso are now buff. He’s spent six months working out six hours a day to build enough muscle to look like a professional boxer. “We made a deal” says his trainer Terry Claybon. “If you’re going to learn how to box you’re going to have to get in there and act like a boxer.”
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