Adorable Jake Gyllenhaal swirled into our Little Tokyo store this weekend. Wonder if he bought one for Reese...
It's been a while since we had an L.A. coffee run. Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon on Abbot Kinney in Venice. Looks like they paid another visit to Intelligentsia.
Natalie Portman is interviewed by Jake Gyllenhaal for this month's Interview Magazine. Jake proves adept and inventive as a questioner, covering subjects from Mount Rushmore to hallucination, ice cream cake to jetlag.
Jake's a Baskin Robbins man, FYI.
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: I thought I would start off our interview with a little section that I’d like to call The Icebreaker. Are you sitting down?
GYLLENHAAL: So let’s begin. Mount Rushmore honors four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. If you could add any person to Mount Rushmore, who would it be and why?
Neither Natalie nor Jake can figure out who should get that honor, so the subject moves to childhood toys.
PORTMAN: Oh, that’s really good. I was like a total clichéd ’80s child. I had Barbies, obviously, as well as My Little Ponies and Cabbage Patch Kids, but I used to destroy them. I used to draw all over their faces and cut off their hair.
GYLLENHAAL: Do you remember Garbage Pail Kids?
PORTMAN: Oh, yeah. The cards.
GYLLENHAAL: They had names like Raked Jake and stuff like that.
PORTMAN: Raked?
GYLLENHAAL: Yeah. He was like a Cabbage Patch Kid who’d been raked over.
That is a very scary image!
Natalie mentiones the Smurfs and Jake doesn't invoke Donnie Darko by name but the evil Gargamel is discussed.
That, naturally, leads to time travel.
GYLLENHAAL: So, then, let me ask you this: If you could get into a time machine, to what place and period would you travel?
PORTMAN: Well, right now, I’m very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean, probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization—like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture—what circumstances created the environment or the need for it. I actually felt like I was in a time machine last week when I went with Jay-Z to the Laserium in Los Angeles.
They discuss Natalie's love of dirty rap. I'm sure we all remember Natalie's SNL rap performance:
What I'd like to see or hear is a tape of this exchange:
PORTMAN: Really, really obscene hip-hop. I love it so much. It makes me laugh and then it makes me want to dance. Those are like my two favorite things, so combined . . . I’ve been listening a lot lately to “Wait (The Whisper Song)” by the Ying Yang Twins, where the lyrics are like, “Wait ’til you see my dick”—which is just amazing because it’s whispered. [whispers] “Wait ’til you see my dick . . . ” [laughs] Crazy. So I just listen to it like I’m a five-year-old, like, “Oh my god! I can’t believe he just said that!”
GYLLENHAAL: It’s interesting that you think the lyric “Wait ’til you see my dick” describes your current state. I think people are learning more about you right now then they ever have in an interview. I’m proud of that.
After some quick career counseling for Natalie, the interview ends with Jake asking for jetlag-curing tips. Jake is apparently wary of Ambien, after a bad trip:
GYLLENHAAL: My favorite situation that I was ever in was when I was on a plane with a group of people and all of them took Ambien except for me, and two of them had adverse reactions. They were awake and aggressive . . . Apparently aggression is one of the side effects of Ambien.
PORTMAN: And they were completely unaware, right—like they didn’t remember it after?
GYLLENHAAL: No, I think they remember it. Everyone else was dead asleep, and these two people were like, bashing their heads against the side of the plane, trying to jump out. So I was like, If taking this pill means that there’s even a 30 percent chance of me getting aggressive like that, then I would just rather stay at peace.
PORTMAN: You’re a very peaceful man, Jake.
It's a wonderful interview - definitely check out the rest of the excerpts. There are some dramatic photos of Natalie, as well.
(Photos courtesy of IHJ. Garbage Pail photo courtesy of GPKWorld.)
Whine (quietly) and ye shall receive: Even better old new photos. Because they are fairly new and there's nothing old about this chest!
No news on the Jake Gyllenhaal front, so let's trip down memory lane a bit. I saw Brokeback Mountain on the big screen again last week and was reminded again of its power and beauty.
Here are a few videos I hadn't seen before. First up, an interview:
I love where he talks about the epic, Hollywood aspect of the film. And the clear case of Gyllenbabble, where he seems to say that he, Ang and Heath all stayed in the same trailer.
You know there are miles of footage of Jake and Heath from these interviews. I wish people would put them all on youtube!
Speaking of Heath, here he is:
In case some haven't seen it, an interview with Jake done in Venice - this one's a keeper:
Jake at the Los Angeles premiere:
I have seen this video before, but hey, never enough Jake, right?
You've probably seen this new still from Brothers, but click for mega size:
I also made some new caps from the trailer. A sampling:
A couple of writers for the Untitled Moon Project sat down to discuss the evolution of the film and the lead character to be played by Jake Gyllenhaal, they hope. It looks like they're trying for an early 2010 start date.
We've heard previously from Doug Liman that Jake has been very involved in the creation of his character. John Freeman Gill, a 30Ninjas editor, helped to write an earlier draft of the movie. Simon Kinberg is a producer on the film - as is Jake, apparently - and has been working with Doug Liman and with Jake on the latest draft.
JOHN FREEMAN GILL: What kind of action hero has Jake said that he’s interested in playing? SIMON KINBERG: A smart action hero. Jake is an Oscar-nominated, great dramatic actor, who also has the physical body to play action. And the movies he loves are things like the Bourne movies; he loves a smart, cerebral, capable character, who doesn’t lead from muscles, who leads from intelligence, but when necessary can actually also rough it up. But this character is not so much what you would consider a traditional action character in the sense of a guy who shoots a gun and explodes things and beats up a crowd of people in a fistfight. He’s actually more somebody who has this dream of going to the Moon, and by hook or crook, and quite a bit of crook, is gonna get there, and so he’s a little bit more like us. A little bit less of a superhero.
Quite a bit of crook - I like that!
JFG: What particular strengths of Jake’s as an actor are you hoping to draw on? SK: I think he has an innate kindness to him, as a person and as an actor. And what’s interesting about that is when you play against that he becomes even more interesting, because you’re never going to feel like he’s evil; you’re always going to understand that there’s a fundamental kindness at the core of his being. So you can allow him to do things that feel like the wrong things, or are motivated by the wrong motive, because you do feel at the end of the day that there’s some kindness that will overcome whatever his personal issues are. So that’s one thing. You have a lot of leeway to actually fuck him up, because he feels so decent at the core. And he’s also an actor who, because of his big eyes, and because it feels like there’s a lot going on behind his eyes, he doesn’t have to talk much about his emotions. There are some actors who don’t feel as penetrable. So you sort of have to overcompensate for that by giving them some scene where someone says, you know, “I remember when you were seven years old and your mom died.” With Jake, because there’s so much emotion he carries just as a good actor and as someone who has these very expressive eyes, you don’t have to do a lot of work to make us feel that he is an emotive character. He just gives you a lot of flexibility as a writer. ...
but I think what’s really special about Jake is that he has this innate goodness to him. And it’s in everything. Every movie you watch of his, you feel it, and the more interesting way to go with that is to bury it a little bit. And to take for granted it’s there, and to give him a different thing to play.
Here are the three movies/characters cited as models for the character:
Jason Bourne
Lawrence of Arabia
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
It's late and I'm terrible at photoshop, but maybe someone else can come up with a combo of those three!
It's fascinating to hear about this project. I hope it continues to develop with thought and care. And with Jake in the lead. Thanks to the 30Ninjas crew for giving us a peak into the process.
Some new-to-me Jake photos from the Jarhead premiere. Nothing exciting but I did love the way Jake looked that night:
Just in time for The Time Traveler's Wife to be released, there's a poll naming the UK's favorite time traveling films. Back to the Future took the top spot, with Terminator in second place. But the third place time-traveling superhero is none other than Jake Gyllenhaal's Donnie Darko:
Over the past ten years, Jake has traveled through the last six decades to play a variety of characters. The Fifties:
Sixties:
1970s:
Eighties:
1990s:
00s:
Next year, Jake breaks away from modern times and goes back to the 6th century to play the Prince of Persia:
What's your favorite era for Jake? Any time period you'd like to see him try? Early 19th century, perhaps?
The Chilmark Road Race reports continue. Doug Liman blogged about running the race with Jake Gyllenhaal:
So this weekend was the Chilmark Race at Martha’s Vineyard, where I was convinced by Jake Gyllenhaal, who also has a house on the Island, to compete in the front group who compete to do six-minute miles. ...
So in spite of being such a dilettante runner, I was pretty proud at first because I did manage to leave Jake in the dust at the beginning. Apparently, that had less to do with my running powers and more to do with the fact that someone ran into the back of his shoe and he ran right out of it. It actually went flying over us. I like to think of it as me making him eat my dust. But he did catch up and pass me.
You can see Doug Liman just behind Jake in the starting line.
Doug also blogged this week about the Untitled Moon Project, which even he acknowledges needs a real name. Sounds like it will be his next movie and that he and Jake have been working on it:
And it now looks like my Untitled Moon Project (it really needs a title) is next, because Simon Kinberg (my partner from Mr. and Mrs. Smith) just did some amazing work on it.
Every draft of the script has been really exciting and really solid. The movie is about a private expedition to the Moon — present day. Not science fiction. So real, in fact, that I debated spending $100 million to make the movie or $100 million to really go to the Moon and just shoot a documentary there. The heroes of my film steal all the old Apollo parts to rebuild Apollo 18, which was canceled in 1972 before it launched. ...
The other thing that I think Simon is nailing is an amazing character not only for Jake Gyllenhaal to play but also for the other lead to play — an amazing female character — as well as a great love story. Jake’s been a lot like Matt Damon was in The Bourne Identity — these are actors who are fiercely committed to doing something original, not derivative — off the beaten path. And we’re writing Moon for Jake’s voice. That part of the process has been sitting in rooms with him, riffing out dialogue, and figuring out not only what would be the best character for the movie but who the best character is for Jake for this movie. So from a character standpoint the script took a tremendous leap forward.
I think he means that Jake has been working on it with them. In any case, it's great to hear that they are really paying attention to character.
No timeline for the project. We'll have to keep an eye on Liman's blog for more details.
In other Jake movie news, IFC places Nailed on its list of movies waiting to see the light of day. I really hope we get to see it at some point!
Well, it has the best photos, at least! This Jake Gyllenhaal picture deserves its own new post:
The race was not without celebrity moments and glitches — sometimes both at once. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal lost a shoe and precious seconds. “I had to wrestle for it,” he said. Despite the mishap, he enthused, “It’s the best race in the world, man.”
Jake and director Doug Liman, courtesy of boston.com:
Old event, but a new (albeit blurry) photo. But worth revisiting :)
