There's always been something eerily calm about Jake Gyllenhaal, a placidness that has served him well in understated roles such as the title character in Donnie Darko or the grieving boyfriend in Moonlight Mile. How wonderful, then, to see the actor cut loose with three fiery performances in 2005. First he shared the screen with Anthony Hopkins and Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof, the adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer-winning play. But it is his back-to-back roles as jaded soldier Anthony Swofford in Jarhead and lovesick ranch hand Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain that are earning the actor the best reviews of his career.
Before this spectacular trio, it would be easy to chalk his success up to genetic gifts: He deservedly earned heartthrob status as the younger man to the likes of Catherine Keener (in Lovely & Amazing) and Jennifer Aniston (in The Good Girl). But he's never been one to shy away from challenging material. Okay, there was that foray into popcorn entertainment with The Day After Tomorrow, but we all have to pay the bills. Still, little could have prepared audiences for his flawless, passionate performances this year. And while his work is uniformly excellent, there are several other reasons to praise Gyllenhaal. Among them:
He admits to having qualms about his Brokeback Mountain role.
Known by many as "the gay cowboy movie," Brokeback didn't initially interest Gyllenhaal. "The way people presented it, as I'm sure some people still present it now, is in sort of a joking manner," he notes. "And I didn't really want to have anything to do with that until I knew how it was going to be interpreted. I didn't really feel like it was interesting or new somehow." He read the script only after Ang Lee signed on to direct. "When Ang came on, I read it and immediately was blown away, thinking about the benevolence that Ang approaches his movies with," he says. "I knew the line we were going to walk. I thought at first maybe it was a story about two straight guys, and it's really a story about two guys who don't really know what they're getting into, and they meet each other out of loneliness and have this amazing connection. That's what I felt when I read it, and I knew Ang would bring that out, and I think that's what we succeeded in doing."
He ages gracefully.
As Gyllenhaal's Brokeback character ages over the course of three decades, the actor is asked to believably portray Jack from callow youth to middle age. It's a trap that can ensnare even the best actors, but he pulls it off admirably-even an unflattering 1980s mustache. When told this, he laughs. "I spent the entire second half of the movie trying to pull off that mustache, literally and figuratively," he quips.
He makes it look easy.
The Jarhead script required an enormous amount of Gyllenhaal, physically and mentally. For the emotionally charged scenes, he embraced the instability of the material, which veers from heavy drama to dark comedy. "There was a real presence every day where you would show up and whatever you were feeling would help the story," he explains. "There's not a real consistency that exists. So I could show up and just be present and flexible with what I was feeling. If I would come to set without getting any sleep the night before, I would bring it with me to the day. If I was fighting with an actor on the set, I would bring that to the scene. It was much more-I hate to use this word-organic in that way. I feel like 'organic' is the new actor word, so I'm loath to use it."
He even managed to find an upside to performing physically exhausting tasks in 110-degree heat while filming Jarhead. "It was hard, but I was in the mentality of enjoying it; that was part of the character," he reasons. "Whenever you're doing anything that's servicing the story, it doesn't feel as hard. It's like how everyone says, 'What was it like doing love scenes with Heath?' Yes, we were worried, and it was a little traumatic, but we really felt like we were servicing a story that was incredibly important. And because of that, it wasn't as hard. I feel the same way about the physical exhaustion on Jarhead. Yeah, I was tired, but you can see the power of the mind when you're excited about what you're doing; it takes over."
He's willing to be the aggressor.
Gyllenhaal says the most difficult part of playing Jack was being unfamiliar with the feelings of his character. "It's foreign to me to be in a love story with another man, being able to make that real and try to move myself into that," he notes. In addition, Jack is the one who pursues the relationship; Ledger's Ennis is more reticent. "To be the one encouraging it, not fighting it, saying, 'This can work, I believe in this'-I've never been in a situation like that," Gyllenhaal adds. "A lot of times, as an actor, you can go back and say, 'I can relate to this in my life.' And I can relate to being in relationships with women where I've said, 'This can work, this can work.' But there was an added aspect to this that was totally foreign territory to me."
Still, he completely committed to the role. In one scene, the characters are reunited after a four-year separation, and it was his suggestion that Jack be less passive. "It was written where Heath's character threw me against the wall," he explains. "I would say, 'I think my character throws him against the wall, also.' Heath was in total agreement. Even in the first love scene, both of us related to the physicality of fighting much more than we did to the physicality of making love. That was the bridge we used." Gyllenhaal bristles when others try to pigeonhole the relationship. He says, "I have a problem when people say, 'Oh, you seem to be more the woman in the relationship.' Or some say, 'Heath is more the woman, because you're the one chasing him.' But I don't know why you even need to say that about either of us."
He's aware of the risk of overexposure.
With three movies this fall and two due next year (including David Fincher's Zodiac), Gyllenhaal sounds a little embarrassed to be taking up so much marquee space at once.
"I didn't mean to be doing this many movies, and I didn't mean for them all to come out at the same time," he says, almost apologetically. "I'm actually very picky about the work that I choose, and I really feel strongly about it when I end up doing it." Still, it's not like he's saying yes to just anything; all three of his current films are acclaimed prestige projects. "When you have John Madden and Ang Lee and Sam Mendes and David Fincher ask you to be in their movies and the movies are good and the parts are amazing, you just can't say no," he reasons.
He couldn't care less about star billing.
Although the two share fairly equal screen time, Gyllenhaal is being touted in the supporting actor category for Brokeback Mountain, as opposed to Ledger, who is promoted in ads as the lead. Perhaps the supporting billing is to keep Gyllenhaal from competing against himself with Jarhead; regardless, the actor doesn't concern himself with such politics. "It is weird, when there's a movie about a yin and a yang, that you make one a little different sized," he admits. "But ultimately, I don't feel that way. Look, I feel like Peter Sarsgaard supported me in Jarhead, and I feel like I'm supporting Heath here. I don't how you're supposed to qualify or quantify it, but Heath really carries the story through. I do believe that he's leading the way... Either way, I'm just happy to be in the movie."
He takes advice from the best.
"The best piece of advice I feel like I got from another actor was [from] Chris Cooper when we were doing October Sky," notes Gyllenhaal. "He said to me, 'Just have no regrets.' And I think that probably gets you through the good times and the bad. When you have no regrets and you're feeling low, you can say, 'You know what? I've given it everything I've got.' I think about that every time I'm in any scene. I would love every director to come to me and say, 'You think you got it? You want to try anything else?' so I could finally have the final say before we move on. I love it when a director asks me if I'm good, because I've had a choice in it. There are no regrets. Again, I got this advice from Chris Cooper, and I think Chris Cooper is the kind of person who should be giving advice. So he's giving advice through me."