Post Christmas Post

Boxing Day/St. Stephen's Day/December 26 - it's a good day to review the gifts Jake Gyllenhaal fans received this year. Jake gave us four different characters in three productions this year, plus all the fun of watching him promote them.

March brought the long-awaited release of Enemy, introducing Adam Bell and Anthony Claire.



UK audiences will finally get to see Enemy next year.



Nightcrawler was an unexpected treasure. The movie, particularly Jake's performance, was met with raves, receiving many nominations and "Best of 2014" accolades. Kudos, Lou Bloom.





Jake is also making his Broadway debut, costarring with Ruth Wilson in Constellations. This gift will keep on giving until March.





We also got sneak previews of what Jake has in store for us in 2015:






Of course, it wouldn't be the Christmas season without Santa, even if he's a little late.

Stargazing

Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson's Broadway debut opened in previews Tuesday night at the Samuel Friedman Theatre. The costars spoke to Vogue about Constellations:

During a lunch break in a midtown rehearsal room I meet the pair of actors charged with finding those qualities, both of whom saw and fell in love with the play in London. Though Gyllenhaal has four films in the can, he has been increasingly drawn to the stage, most recently playing a drifter with boundary issues in If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet. Wilson, an off-kilter beauty, first made a splash as a young governess in the 2006 BBC miniseries of Jane Eyre and has since become a star in the U.S. as the mysterious Montauk waitress on Showtime’s The Affair—though she is a stage veteran with two Olivier awards. “I’d just done five months with a camera in my face and was quite keen to get back onstage and back into my body,” Wilson says. “But I wanted something that challenged me in a different way.”

“I think the thing that makes it challenging, and ultimately why I wanted to do it,” Gyllenhall adds, “is that it feels as if underneath the words is—forgive the pun—a universe of choices. And there will never be a night when those choices will be the same. Even in the past two days, we’ve interpreted certain scenes at least five ways.”



“That’s the genius of it,” says Wilson. “It’s a huge, universal theme, but told through a love story. It makes your mind spin with ideas and thoughts about all the options available to you, but also about how fate plays a role—maybe you don’t actually have any free will at all. Nick has a huge heart, along with an amazing intellect, and he combines the two in a really beautiful, simple way.”

“And the type of work we know we have to do,” Gyllenhaal adds quickly, “is a little terrifying for both of us—or maybe I should just speak for myself.”

“No, no,” Wilson says with a nervous laugh. “You can speak for me.”


The costars have been mitigating their terror through preparation: Gyllenhaal has been studying books on beekeeping, while Wilson has been watching documentaries about cosmology and spending time at a planetarium. Their job, of course, is to bring to life the vivid particulars of the relationship between their characters—one of whom sees life through the microcosm of the beehive while the other looks toward the vastness of space.

“It makes me think of all the permutations of relationships,” Gyllenhaal says. “Times when I’ve approached somebody and they haven’t been interested, or someone’s approached me and I haven’t been interested, or maybe things felt really, really right but it still didn’t work out—every incarnation possible. We’ve all had those moments.”



There won't be any reviews until the play officially opens. But on a rainy Tuesday night, many fans seemed happy to wait for the stars at the stage door:

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Jake and the Nightcrawler crew have also continued to receive gold stars from critics groups. Jake topped the Village Voice critics poll as Best Actor, as well as polls from the Austin and San Diego film critics. (I think I've missed some, but we'll post a tally later.)

Nominations all around

The flood of awards season nominations began in earnest this week. For his performance as Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler, Jake received nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press/Golden Globes. While the whole process leaves many people happy, sad or confused, Jake and Jake fans have reason to smile.



To celebrate - some new videos! Jake's Constellations costar, Ruth Wilson, was also nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in The Affair. Jake, Ruth and Constellations director Michael Longhurst discuss the play, which opens in previews next week:

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Maggie Gyllenhaal was also nominated for SAG and GG. So Jake is "surrounded" by Golden Globe nominees: Yesterday, Jake called into a People radio show to chat about the nods:
He also talked about the SAG nomination here.

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Jake and Patricia Arquette from the Variety Actors on Actors series:
Jake on the phone with KTLA, the Los Angeles news station that was used to film Nightcrawler. Jake congratulates them for all the NC kudos:

Star turns

Vive la France ! Perhaps long interviews like this explain why French audiences are really taking to Nightcrawler:





Constellations begins previews next week. Here's a late first look:





In case you missed Jake on Kelly and Michael:

(It's never too late for) Giving Thanks

This has been a very good year for Jake Gyllenhaal and for Jake Gyllenhaal fans. Though we missed Thanksgiving day last week, we can still give thanks for all of the riches 2014 has brought so far.

The delayed post gave us the opportunity to post the above shot from Dove Shore photography. Let's hope there are more where that came from! Here's a gorgeous shot from the Variety Actor on Actor series:



From a different photo shoot, Jake in the water:





I'm thankful for the opportunity to see Jake onstage again this year. Jake and his Constellations cohorts visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York last week. From the AMNH curator:

Had a really nice time giving the crew of the new play Constellations (see the link below in my other post) a tour of the Rose Center. Here's a little pic that Craig Chesek, one of the AMNH photographers, took during the tour. I was really impressed with these lovely people--all really smart and, it was fun to meet them. They asked a lot of great questions and seemed to like the space show, which deals with some of the science in the play, I understand. I hope some of the science we talked about comes out in the play. From left: Michael Longhurst (Director), Ruth Wilson (who plays the astrophysicist), an astrophysicist most of you know, and Jake Gyllenhaal (who plays a bee keeper I think.) A number of the other crew were present too. Delightful morning and I am looking forward to seeing the play.



The cornucopia of Nightcrawler promotion continued with an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman:





And a brief clip from Deadline's Rough Cut interview:



Nightcrawler was a happy surprise for audiences and critics. Big thanks to Dan Gilroy, Roger Deakins, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed and Jake for a fascinating, provocative film. Fingers crossed for more nominations - and wins!

It was named Empire Magazine's #2 film of 2014:



We have a full slate of movies to look forward to, including Demolition. I don't remember seeing this photo from filming:



There's also Southpaw. This photo has really made the rounds, with many people exclaiming thanks for Jake's dedication to his body, er, craft:



Always grateful for people who manage to persuade Jake to take a photo - and to smile! Jake at the Gotham Awards:



I'm truly grateful for the health and well-being of family and friends. And for all of you out there - posters and lurkers alike. This is a great time to be a Jake Gyllenhaal fan, and I'm happy to be among you all.

MCM

Sure, MCM usually stands for Man Candy Monday. Or Man Crush Monday. We're going with Memory Card Monday. Above is a photo posted on Facebook from a before-he-was-famous photoshoot. Probably this one. Below, an assortment of recently posted pics from the far and not-so-distant past.

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Jake on Nightcrawler and what he's learned and what he's kept from other roles:

Meet the press

Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson met the press today to discuss their Broadway debut(s) in Constellations, a play by Nicholas Payne. The Manhattan Theatre Club production is a "mind-bending, romantic journey begins with a simple encounter between a man and a woman (Gyllenhaal and Wilson). But what happens next defies the boundaries of the world we think we know – delving into the infinite possibilities of their relationship and raising questions about the difference between choice and destiny."





They were joined by director Michael Longhurst. Gyllenhaal, Payne and Longhurst all worked together on Jake's NY stage debut, If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet. And Wilson and Longhurst went to college together. So there's a sense of old friends and new horizons.



Why so serious?



Come on, lighten up!



That's better.



Ruth investigating the lifelike Jake statue:



Cut that out!

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Ruth and Jake posed for a photoshoot last week. Some shots of the shots: