Update2: The first shot from Time To Dance, the video Jake stars in for The Shoes:
Update: Did I say there was no Jake news? How about a new role?
Jake Gyllenhaal is in negotiations to star in Motor City, the Albert Hughes-directed drama for Dark Castle. Gyllenhaal, who most recently completed the David Ayer-directed drama End of Watch, will play an ex-army ranger named John Miller who gets framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Now, he is going after the man who framed him and stole his true love. Oscar-nominated Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy star Gary Oldman plays the villain and Amber Heard is the female lead. Joel Silver and Andrew Rona will produce for Dark Castle with Ethan Erwin and Douglas Urbanski exec producing. Warner Bros will distribute, as the studio did with Dark Castle’s hit Unknown. The film will begin shooting late spring in Berlin. No new Jake news, so here are some tidbits gathered around the inter webs:
Looks like the Berlinale jury members are let their hair (and ties) down a bit after the ceremony. Also, Jake, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mike Leigh and Anton Corbijn are all demons, apparently. Best Actress winner Rachel Mwanza seems fresh as a daisy!
That's an old picture of Jake shooting the fire at Manka's Inverness Lodge in December, 2006. The lodge is still in business, but the restaurant did not reopen. Jarhead was on the other night, promoting a flood of hilarious tweets. And then I stumbled across this old French interview. I think it's been posted before, but it's worth another look:
After 10 days in snowy Berlin, the Berlinale came to a close with the closing ceremonies and a gala dinner in a mirror tent in the Martin-Gropius-Bau:
I wanted to attend, especially because of the actor Jake Gyllenhaal. To find out a bit about his 10 days in Berlin, spent with the judge and watching movies. In the smoking section, we started talking, though the man from Hollywood does not smoke. First question: "Was it hard?" Good humored and relaxed, the young man (31, best known from the movie "Donnie Darko" and "Brokeback Mountain") stated, "We discussed an awful lot! But not because the Berlinale film festival is political," he says, "but because our jury president, Mike Leigh, is British. And Brits love to debate, "even to the extreme."
"Once we sat around a table and argued for twelve fucking hours." What he actually said there or chose or another criticized, Mr. Gyllenhaal reveals nothing. "But it definitely was always clear and interesting to see how different actors and directors analyze." And: "We eight jurors were always very fast and quite sure about what movies were good or remarkable. We argued only that it was good enough to be worthy. "
The author also asked Jake how he could persuade a straight friend to watch Brokeback Mountain, a film that the author deems the gay Titanic. Jake's reply: "Tell him it's a universal but special love story. A great film makes a love story unique." A few images from snowy Berlin and the festival:
The Reichstag
Movies rule.
Members of the jury.
A happy juror after the verdicts.
Fans' perspective.
Monica has posted clips of Jake from the red carpet and on stage on youtube. Links to all of them are here. I haven't watched the videos yet, but you can here the reaction when Jake gets out of his car at the end of this clip.
Thanks to Stephanie and Monica for keeping up with all the news from the festival.
Closing ceremonies for the 62nd Berlinale. The jury awarded the Golden Bear to Italian docudrama Ceasar Must Die, a surprise winner. The movie, from directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, "explore(s) the porous boundaries between art and life. The film looks at a staging and performance of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at Rome’s maximum security prison Rebibbia, with the inmates playing all the roles."
Jake Gyllenhaal presented the Best Actress Award to Rachel Mwanza for her role as a child soldier in the "harrowing" film War Witch. (Full list of winners.)
Jake Gyllenhaal made a speech at the Berlinale, where actress Meryl Streep was awarded a Golden Bear for lifetime achievement . Gyllenhaal has known Streep since he was a child. He described knowing her growing up and then professionally.
ETA: A couple of photos from Saturday of Jake doing his jury duties:
That's Jake Gyllenhaal with a man named Bernd Runge, ex-vice-president of Conde Nast and apparently a former Stasi agent. The photo is from the Interview Germany launch party, held the night before the Berlinale opened. Runge is one of the people behind the new magazine. I hope Jake didn't reveal any secrets!
Jake attended a reception held by German president Christian Wulff. Due to some controversy surrounding the president, the number of attendees was lower than expected.
And that's Jake with German actress Anja Haverland, who posted this photo on Facebook.
No, that is not a great photo of Jake, though it has a certain impressionist appeal. I can imagine this happening to me if I ever saw Jake.
I thought this was a funny front page photo.
A new angle I hadn't seen from the photo call. It amused me for some reason.
Each year, the Berlinale jury members are photographed, and the official portraits line the main hall. Jake Gyllenhaal is now a part of that tradition. Here's how it looks on the wall:
And another photo of the jury, taken by photographer Susanna Kraus:
Hope we'll get a bigger version of that one. Thanks to Monica, we can see Jake's portion of the start of the festivities. Here's his introduction at the opening ceremony:
And here's his exchange with the mistress of ceremonies:
