Jake Gyllenhaal Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

I love the movies that I've been a part of someone asked me the other day if I have any regrets of the choices that I've made and I'm like regrets and being able to make movies what the hell kind of question is that [Music] October sky it's sort of a crazy thing to be that age to be 16 years old and be starring in a movie audition for it and I worked so hard to get the role so it meant so much to me you know I mean I remember havin go through like auditions and auditions and auditions and auditions and then proving myself of their meetings and all this stuff and it was like a it meant a lot to me and so that was very similar to me in the same way that the love that homer that character has for rockets and trying to get out and that kind of drive and love and ambition and trying to prove oneself you know to make something bigger than where you come from all of those themes are very similar to me in my life at the time and the real Homer was just such a lovely guy the book he wrote was beautiful and he really took me under his wing he was just so kind and engaged in me and I remember I worked very hard I remember that but I loved it so much and it's such a beautiful story I think it holds up to this day you know and then you're working with Laura Dern and you work with Chris Cooper and you know I've always loved watching other actors work I mesmerised on the opposite side watching them sometimes I can't always even engage because I just love watching them and to be that age and to see great acting that's how you begin to learn a specific scene we were in a fight at fight scene with with Chris Cooper's me and he plays my dad and I remember being very excited for the fight scene because I get an actor you know pretty good young actor I get to yell and scream and Lamba I remember coming up to me after about the second take and him saying to me you're not listening to me listen to what I'm saying to you and I remember it went from me just sort of raising my voice and yelling and not coming from a real place to having his words that he was saying to me hit me like hit me in the heart maybe I can go to college maybe even get a job at Cape Canaveral there's nothing here for me the town is dying the miners die and everybody knows it here but you you want to get out of here so bad then go don't ya go yeah go go go and I'll be gone forever I won't even look back to actually listen as an as an actor as a person everything becomes different everything becomes much more significant and I just remember that him stopping just saying listen to me and the entire scene changed and a lot of the next couple it takes we used were right after he told me that Joe Johnston who director October sky directs the first Captain America he really gave me my first shot and I owe him a lot that he believed in me I wouldn't be here here talking to you I wouldn't have made able to make all the movies I've made or even make this spider-man movie without Joe believing in me I mean I like to think someone else may have but most likely not spider-man farmer bones I mean walking into the MCU and Marvel Universe it's huge there's sort of a lot that's expected of you in the process of making movies and also as the character and it's the same kind of feeling of someone giving you that suit and putting it on your being like boo is right for me I mean it's fun I mean it's fun knowing everything that happens I mean I knew the events of endgame you know before endgame came out I love this speculation because a lot of times you'll read something or someone will say something to you and you'll realize oh oh yeah that might be true you know and it was someone sort of random idea I I also think a lot of them are wrong and that's fun else and it feels like a pressure it feels like a pressure you when you're making it you know I think people love that character and it's so different from the character of the comics and you know when you're doing something as different from the comics as we did in this I think you kind of go like I was working with uh disastrous times he's got a bland personality I just basically just very boring no it was like it was Jen it was genuinely lovely he puts everything into making spider-man great he knows how much pressure there is on him and he knows how much people care about that character and he puts everything physically emotionally mentally into it I think it wasn't until the literally a day ago when he saw the movie finally that he said he could relax he offered me a lot of advice that I needed and he just cons me was like yes that's exactly how everyone feels when they first start off in this space and we just became friends that way you know I think he admires me I admire him both for very different reasons and as much as actors in press junkets after the fact like to talk about how wonderful the other one was to work with and who knows if it's true or not half the time I really I really like him a lot as a human being and I enjoy being with him outside of all this stuff so that all went into the movie as well donnie darko I found Donnie Darko and the character of Donnie Darko very comforting at a time in my life where I was really lost and trying to figure out a lot of things for myself about myself my place in the world which is what he was going through my dad says this thing where he's like the job of art is to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed and like I think that that's very true in a lot of ways and at the time I think I was like the world was just crazy you know you get thrust out into it and you're like whoa it's trippy you know and to know there was a character that was like feeling those same feelings gave me a real outlet and made me not go mad myself Donnie you're such a dick I've always looked up to my sister in a lot of ways I probably credit her with the reason why I wanted to act why I started to act I got into it we were both starting out Bullough very you know obviously very ambitious people like there's a lot as similarities between the two of them fighting at the dinner table maybe you should be the one in therapy then mom and dad can pay someone $200 an hour to listen to all your thoughts so we don't have to do okay you want to tell mom and dad Way stop taking your medication I have admired her since I was born now as we do our older siblings even when we despise them we love them deeply you know that's the sibling relationship for anyone who has one working with her was complicated for both of us it's weird to put a real relationship in a fictional space but I think as actors as like angley said once I heard him say we pretend to get closer to the truth and both of us are real like truth seekers and scenes you know that's what we love to do and so to be working with someone who's like calls you out you know was that why'd you do that that's weird weird choice oh that feels true that's honest you know that it's so present was amazing when I look back on it now and that's what I desire I mean that's what I I think a scene really only is fulfilling when you're learning something about yourself in it you put on a lot of guys's and disguises but truthfully where I want to go is places where I don't have that but I try all these tricks before something real happens you know and that is what I love about it it's like what about this know what about that know what about that know what about that what about that just you know calm down and listen like back to Chris Cooper every time my sister is one of those actors too I mean it's why she's extraordinary because she's similar to Chris and all the great actors that I've had the opportunity to work with they're constantly like just be still listen be honest as best as you can if you're an actor it was a long journey and continues to be a very long journey for that movie I do know that passion of the christ' was released by the same company and they had just made a extraordinary amount of money from that movie and from the funds of that movie they were able to take a risk and say okay we'll do a theatrical release because you know we have some despair and thank God they did I mean it just goes to show those things you think are sort of gonna fail or if people are telling you they are you know life of something can be so many they're gonna be so many different lives it's not like one big opening weekend because it like be open and didn't no one really saw it right and actually if he got found again in London I remember I was making I was doing a play on the West End and people start to just generate this energy I was like whoa what's happening and then it just came back alive again and has continued to be alive for or a decade now stronger I just loved the story I love the script and I love the story and I love the character of Jeff Bowman I think I said often about him that he is really a superhero you know the things that he went through to get to where he is to survive and to live today are like of endgame proportions internally his story taught me more about my career and about life than anything I've ever done and when I read that I just I just really wanted to be a part of it you know there was a scene where I'm like dragged myself across the parking lot and get to a window and I'm I'm banging on the window and David Gordon Green let the camera roll for you know roll out really and in digital world you can even roll for a very long time and I was there for about like 30 minutes at this window and pushed beyond I think you know my idea of the fictional part of the character you know into another space and it was a beautiful thing to discover and the pain of that moment and to feel a lot of Bostonians who are a crew who were so deeply affected as the world was by the event of the Marathon bombings feel that energy and hand have us all feel together and I learned two things I learned that you know a crew like everybody working is not only an audience but we are all in it together even if someone is behind here you guys can't see them but we're all here together and that's very powerful and we're all kind of in it together and then I also learned that you can't lose your imagination that acting is like all about imagination and there's a lot of talk about like Oh commitment and you know method acting and you know how far do you go and blah blah blah everybody's favorite conversation when you're talking to an actor or not favorite conversation but it is a conversation to add a lot and I just believe so deeply in your imagination that's the fun it's like the play it's what you need and I had lost it in that moment and I and it threw me for a number of days because I went so far and I just realized that that's not acting to me anymore every movie you do you learn about the process of of what you you you know how far you can push it what techniques you want to use and I've used my career because I've been lucky enough to work on a number of films I was just formed my production company at the time and we we produced that movie alongside Mandeville produced as well my company has become more about helping other people tell their stories I'm not in a lot of the movies that we produce but I am occasionally and yes I you know I've was brought up with storytellers you know and that is that my real love you know watching stories get made is really exciting like I said before is like watching an actor work is more exciting than doing the acting myself sometimes you know and I love performing but it's just a magic of stories that I want to keep trying to help if I have the opportunity people know who I am and that they know my name then I can lend it to something to help it get made end of watch what it did to my life in the five months I did in preparation with police officers around Los Angeles County I'm in East LA and what I saw just changed me forever to see the work that they do to be with them watching them do their work to be in sometimes very dangerous situations and also beautiful situations to see human behavior at its most tried sometimes changed everything in the way I see the world so I look at that as a very very particular moment in my life in my career something I needed you know alright this is my day job some sorry Brahma Corey this is my day job some you might know me as Brian the process of filming was cool you know III fancy myself a bit of a filmmaker and so we were very much a part of the process of shooting that movie we shot on camera and so and I my character has a camera that he's shooting with we didn't want it to be cute you know and I actually look at that as an extension you know end of watch into a movie Nightcrawler there's you know to me the movie of Nightcrawler is the evolution of a cameraman like that was my philosophy the entire time the evolution of an artist Nightcrawler it's just fantastic writing yeah it is it is tried-and-true blueprint of anything that is great and storytelling comes from the beginning from great writing and that's not always true doesn't always work that equation but in the case of Nightcrawler it was hands-down the exception of a few one of the greatest screenplays I read a character that already had been developed profound ly by the by Dan Gilroy before it even got to me and so I had to do the finishing touches and that's the way it should be very rarely the way it is when I read it I just went like oh my god he's given me thousands of avenues so many choices but I had this vision of this guy and he talked a lot in the scripts in the way he talked to so on and I was always trying to wrap my head around it I just had this vision of myself I just thought there could be nothing physically imposing about this guy it was all mind and from anything I know about people who are like really like blood up here more than anywhere else in their body is that oftentimes they're not thinking about like what they're gonna eat next or if they can't eat and or what they're gonna do next they have one goal and one goal only and that's where they're headed and I just thought I got him gonna make myself into that idea we spent you know 20 nights shooting the movie 20 to shoot that movies like nothing in movie time you know and I just knew we'd have to go and there were like three to four page monologues you know that this guy had to say so there was part of the reason why the speed at which he speaks comes from that comes from just going how do I as an actor make sure this incredible writing and the performance I'm gonna give stays in the movie you have to say it fast I also want to go to the next room and meet your team and the station manager and the director and the anchors and start developing my own personal relationships I'd like to start meeting them this morning you'll take me around you'll introduce me as the owner and president of video production news and remind them of some of my many other stories people talk about him as like a creepy sociopath and there's truth to that and I think he is a prophetic he was a prophetic sort of a symbol of capitalism and leadership that we have now come to become accustomed to but I always looked at it like as this beautiful artist learning how to use a camera and the way what he was shooting was obviously sort of perverse and sick but at the same time he really looked at himself as an artist and you can watch him and that was for me that was big thing so I'm most proud of in that movie you could watch him the style of how he shoots things change when he's moving bodies you know it's just totally illegal and disgusting in the movie you know I don't know how much different that is from a Damien Hirst painting or David me a Hurst piece you know like that's what he looked at it as that's how my was my perspective of it which while I was playing that character which was fascinating and disturbing Brokeback Mountain I think we had been cast for our essences without really understanding what our essences were and that's outside of sexuality I mean we're like two straight guys cast in these roles but who we who we are who we were and could see and I don't know if I could so when the movie had the response that it had I think all of us who had been cast that includes every actor but the main actors of Heath and me and Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams like I think I don't think we recognized what Aang had seen in us so we're sort of wandering around blind at the profundity and the echo that the movie made we understood the power of the story but I think playing a character in it we didn't fully and I don't think we ever had any idea would have the impact that add here on dudes again next summer well maybe not like I said me and I was getting married November trying to get something on the ranch I guess you my hope - my daddy's placing give my hand your than where I'm gonna be back the army don't get me anger this incredible thing where he's very close to you in the pre-production process before you start filming and then in the filming you become this sort of painting he's watching and he doesn't want to touch any of it to disturb it and it becomes a bit cold actually I think he has to focus his heart on the objective well you you know do what you do in front of him I enjoy rehearsals and I believe that writing should should hold up to the rehearsal process and I think you learned a lot in the rehearsal process too you also just mostly break through all I mean there's some moments or it's nice to just meet somebody and go but I find if you're gonna get to a place where you really want to land with someone you want to be present with them it's very good particularly in emotional things and stuff like that you need to at least spend enough time with them that all that forgive me for but like all the of like small talk goes away and then you can get to it when I say all we have is broke man I can't quit you you know that those lines tell you what we could have had a good life together real good life how does the place of our own but you in water Danis so what we got now he's broke back now everything's built on that that's all we got boy off so I hope you know that if you don't never know the rest you count the damn few times that we have been together in nearly 20 years and you measure the short leash you keep me on and then you ask me about Mexico and you tell me you kill me for needs something I don't hardly never get you have no idea how bad it gets I'm not you I can't make it on a couple of high-altitude once or twice a year you are too much for me yes sound horse I wish I knew how to quit you we had rehearsed it we had gone earlier months earlier when it was still snowing there and I remember it was about covered in two or three feet of snow we didn't even see what the ground looked like at a time I had my dog who's now passed away jumping through the snow I remember and then the spring came and everything melted and we shot the scene and there was a like a palpable feeling of that scene while we were doing it to make a movie that's that even just works is a miracle and when it resonates even beyond that it's it's impossible and it has nothing to do with you in the end just being a Brokeback Mountain that's the feeling I have I feel that deeply about it it had nothing to do with me it came to me I was honored to be a part of it and it is now everyone else's in a way that I can't even fathom and that's why I empathize with like any artist to any director anybody does this cuz it's like what an audience experience is and what you experience are two totally different things and oftentimes reconciling those things is the weirdest part about it and you never know what people are gonna respond to you try your best at every turn you put all your your time and your heart and and your belief and the thing that you're doing and I think that goes for everybody and what everything they do when you care and then you're just constantly surprised by what people love and what they don't [Music]

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Id: f74rhJ94fXQ

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019