GQ Jake

May's GQ cover boy is Jake Gyllenhaal, and the photos have popped up, along with some snippets of the interview.


How's single life treating Jake Gyllenhaal these days?

"It's ... it's okay," he says in May's GQ.

A few years ago, Gyllenhaal -- who has since split from Reese Witherspoon -- boasted that "the most important job for a man is to find the right woman."

Does he still feel that way?

"Mmmm," he says. "It goes in either direction. I think it's important for every man to find the right woman and every woman to find the right man."

Asked if that's the most important thing, he pauses for a long time. "Who am I to say what the most important thing in life is?" he replies. "The best answer I could give to any of those things is that I really don’t know. Particularly right now in my life."




Gyllenhaal's parents -- film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner -- finalized their divorce last year after 29 years of marriage.

He says such events can "bring out the truth and honesty in a relationship, and that's greatly relieving to everyone — that people can kind of move and change and grow. And so in some ways, as much pain as there is, there's also a positive outlook on it. And thinking, you know, some relationships last a lifetime, and some relationships don't."

He says his parents' split hasn't affected his personal view about relationships. "Like I said, I think it takes a lot of courage for my parents to make the decision that they made, and I trust both of them and their outlook on life," he says. "They're wonderful parents to me and my sister [Maggie]."

"I think any successful marriage, even if it hasn’t lasted for a lifetime, will create a sense of an ideal," he goes on. "But I don’t have a fantasy. There's not a fantasy. I know it's messy, is what I want to say."


“I’m trying not to keep things so neat. I think I’m realizing my strengths and my faults. I think I’m trying to see what is me…and what is not me.”



"Horns are, to me, the most affirmative instrument to say there is something beyond where we are. In Mumford & Sons [music], whenever those horns come on, I feel like it's all going to be okay. Life's all good -- for the whole world. Maybe that's sophomoric, but I really feel that in my heart."



"I just loved jumping whenever they said 'Jump!' I loved the idea that someone would say just go ahead and jump: 'Man, you know what? Just go ahead and f***ing jump!' 'Really?' And Van Halen was like, 'Yes, my friend.'"




On his experience filming Brokeback Mountain: “There was something magical in that time. We all slept in our trailers out by a trailer park in the first month of making that movie. I was sleeping next to Ang’s trailer; Ang’s trailer was next to Heath and Michelle’s trailer—they’d kind of moved in together. And Michael Hausman, the producer, brought his Airstream trailer down. And it was just us, by this river, for a month. And we would walk to set, and we would eat together, and we would make coffee in the morning, and I would wake up in the morning and there would be Ang Lee doing Tai Chi outside of my trailer, and it was just magical.”

On how Heath’s death affected him: “I don’t really like talking about it. That period of time was…it was difficult. He was very sensitive. He didn’t always have a sense of performance in his everyday life. He knew who he was. I think actors very often, they know how to present something, and that’s part of their job. I think he was just really sensitive. We often used to do a lot of things together, because people were very interested in him and I think we felt safe together. For such a serious actor as Heath was, he was crazy funny. Dark funny, but funny. I don't think any of us can watch [Brokeback Mountain] to this day. I remember talking to Michelle very recently and her being like, 'I didn't know if it was any good or not.'"

Even when we did Brokeback and stuff, it was like my work was the only thing that mattered to me. It was like I could only understand or define myself through doing that. Life, I didn’t totally understand. And I think I was afraid of life. And I had success in my work, enough success that you could keep going back there. But after that happened…I think I recognized that it was work. And I recognized that this is for real.”

Love this part:

Brother-in-law Peter Sarsgaard on a fight he and Jake had, causing them not to speak for ten days: “The nice thing is, for Jake, he doesn’t see having any argument as something that ruins a relationship. He sees it as something that could potentially help one. That’s something I learned from him. I’m extremely close with him. He’s basically my brother.”

Peter further points out, in extolling Jake’s virtues, how unusual he is: “It’s a very difficult thing—or it has been over the course of my life—for me to have respect for people like Jake, who are not self-destructive, who are positive. There are very few actors who have that quality. I go [sighs], ‘Ohhhh, motherf–ker just wants to live—f–k him.’ and my thesis with Jake is that it is genuine. He is not doing it to be more popular and more successful, it is actually who he is.”

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A new featurette on the stunts in PoP, from UGO:

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A shot of Jake between bloody takes on Source Code in Montreal:


And another shot - Jake delivering a punch:



See it in motion!

(GQ scans courtesy of IHJ.)