STACK NZ Sep #66

interview

CINEMA

Donnie Darko

Nightcrawler

Everest

"I “It's not about a genre, or a specific character; I never go for that. For me, I want an honesty and a beating heart that exists underneath the material. I want to feel the emotion of the story. And I seek out friendship and honesty and truth.” Like the characters he is known for playing of late, Jake Gyllenhaal is a serious man. Given the level of success he's achieved you would think he’d give himself a break, but this isn’t the case. "I get down on myself," I'm no longer the person I was in movies I made ten years ago. I'm a different incarnation of that person.

meat. But that's nothing when compared to his training for Southpaw , where he reached a level of fitness a professional boxer might aspire to. “It was mostly about skill. Learning the skills, the knowledge. The ability," he explains. "I trained for five months, went to a training camp, immersed myself in that skill. Not just for the body but also for the mind. I was trying to hone the unconscious, have it become part of my routine, two times a day. And with that stuff, it just happens to your body,”

Southpaw packs an emotional punch as well as in the boxing ring. Following the murder of his wife (Rachel McAdams), Billy ‘The Great’ Hope (Gyllenhaal) is a broken man. It's less a story of redemption and more about Billy trying to salvage some part of himself, never truly recovering from the tragedy. “It's a very human story,” he says, “about fragility and loss and life. It's about the people that support you, who give you heart to get through that pain. That makes you into a champion, and ultimately a real man.” In September, Gyllenhaal will star alongside SamWorthington and Keira Knightley in epic disaster film Everest , based on the 1996 tragedy where horrific snowstorms led to the death of several climbers and their guides. Gyllenhaal describes it as a “tragic, huge movie”. When asked what brought about the desire to tackle these meatier roles, he says it is simply the passage of time. “That's all down to growth and maturity. I'm no longer the person that I was in movies I made ten years ago. I'm a different incarnation of that person. And one of the aspects that changes your career is that, in the initial stages, at the beginning, people

Southpaw

he explains, head cast downward. "I never feel like I truly get a part. Like, I really nail it. You constantly hear you should have no regrets but I do, I always do." When you consider the dedication some of his recent films have

are telling you what you fit into. That's part of it and you listen.” But from the man whose breakthrough was playing the

required, you can’t blame him for being intense – in fact, some of the preparation has bordered on madness. For 2014’s Nightcrawler , in which he plays a sinister voyeur reporting on car crashes, murders and mysterious crimes in LA's dead of night, Gyllenhaal lost a substantial 30 pounds, sustaining himself on kale salad and a little

oddball lead in indie gem Donnie Darko , did we really expect anything less?

Everest is in cinemas on Sept 17

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