The Gyllenhaal Of Fame

Gyllenhaal is one of those rare A-listers who can confidently pull off being a hero, villain and antihero. He can go from romancing Heath Ledger on a mountain, to ethically shady criminal reporter in Nightcrawler in no time. By no time, I mean about a decade if I’m being honest, but you get the idea.

He’s been able to make the jump from regular, buff, straight-laced hero in Prince of Persia, to brick sh*thouse in Southpaw. If you’re part of a younger generation, growing up with his zany oddball characters which Netflix keeps casting him in, such as the bi art critic in Velvet Buzzsaw or cartoon character villain that is Johnny Wilcox in Okja, then you’d be forgiven for not considering him in brawny roles which Channing Tatum would have on permanent lock. He’s successfully navigated the waters of more indie fare like Donnie Darco, to Hollywood big money trash like Day After Tomorrow and back again. He’s a craftsman who takes what he does seriously. Acting can be a vapid, empty career in the grand scheme of things, but he has attempted to elevate his career above just cashing fat cheques, but I’m sure they help.

Gyllenhaal was born in 1980 to a director father and screenwriter mother, just another in a long line of Gyllenhaal’s. Through his father’s line, he has a direct connection to the Swedish Royal Family, his name tracking all the way back to cavalry lieutenant, Nils Gunnarsson Haal, who was ennobled in 1652 and given the name of Gyllenhaal.

Now that we know his name is Swedish, you can be assured you’ve probably been saying it wrong this whole time. If any sort of ‘G’ sound passes your lips, you’ve already messed it up. Although as his Prince of Persia co-star, Gemma Arterton, points out, “It doesn’t really have the movie star ring,” so let’s stick to butchering his name. I’m too old to change anyway.

He was in his first film at 11 and has made a solid career out of acting ever since. He’s got a good set of lungs on him, and is an excellent singer, and his onscreen acting experience translated surprisingly well to the stage. At 21, he signed up to the stage show, ‘This Is Our Youth’. The play’s director, Laurence Boswell, was nervous after he discovered the young actor’s only stage experience was in high school. Gyllenhaal still managed to blow them out of the water. “My sense was that he was tough enough, ruthless enough, ambitious enough and skilled enough to become a big star,” he told The Guardian. How right he was.

He’s developed a reputation for being absolutely dedicated to his craft and somewhat of a workaholic, something we may be able to trace directly back to his father being a role model. On The Off Camera Show in 2016, he described an incredibly disciplined dad.

“I remember as a boy, he’d be up at like 4:30 in the morning and he would write. Even if he was writing in his diary or something like that, he’d be up. He was constantly, sort of, always very prepared like that… I think there’s part of it in me where I kind of recognise the absurdity of what I’m doing and the only way I can move past the absurdity of it, is to commit to it in a place where no one can say it’s absurd anymore.”

‘Absurd’ appears to be a common descriptor for his chosen career, and tangentially his roles have given him a ‘weird’ aura. This is due in no small part, to the ‘rough around the edges’ roles he tends to pick up, including his cult classic role in Donnie Darko, playing an overmedicated kid hanging out with a giant, demon-like rabbit named Frank.

This commitment has led him to habitually research his characters. While in preparation for his role in the crime drama End of Watch, he would go on ride-alongs with the LAPD to get both A) better work stories, and B) an insight into the sort of character he’d be playing. This ended up with him getting voluntarily tasered, among other things. Watching him onscreen, you can see that that’s a man who knows what it’s like to get tasered.

He told Hitflix, “The first ride I went on, I saw someone murdered. It changes your life. You don’t come back from something like that and not see the world a different way.”

“And subsequently, [watching] everything from domestic violence to stolen cars to you name it, and along with the camaraderie and the friendship and the joking and all of that, seeing that for real for five months and shooting for 22 days? And seeing it for real? I won’t be the same in many, many good ways.”

I’m not sure that seeing a murder will ever change you in a good way, unless it makes you truly live every day like it’s your last, but I’m glad it worked out for him.

While Gyllenhaal will willingly talk about seeing people getting murdered and his parents divorcing while he was in his 30’s, he still has a strong reputation for being cagey when it comes to his personal life, and has no issue with tearing a new one in anyone who whiffs of tabloid. One reporter recalls him, arms crossed and stern in Dubai during a press junket, firm that he’d only talk about his work and nothing more.

In one particularly cringey interview with a reporter from The Guardian, he had no problems showing his disdain when questioned about his relationship with Taylor Swift. “I would love to not talk about my personal life,” he said. “I’m not necessarily guarded, but I consider intimacy to be very important and I don’t think everybody needs to know about my family or my personal details. I’m old school in that way.”

The Guardian story recalled a previous encounter with The Telegraph, where Gyllenhaal declined to answer a question about what his sandwich, earlier in the day, had contained, but in its attempt to defend itself, they left out the part where Gyllenhaal then laughed about how ridiculous the situation was and stated that, “I feel like unfortunately, most of the focus right now is on the external, as witnessed by most of the things that come out in the press.”

So with that said, we’ll pass over those more intimate details of his life that he doesn’t divulge himself. M2 has never really been interested in who’s banging who anyway, but it is hard to ignore the physical aspect of Gyllenhaal’s work. He shredded 13kg to prepare for his critically acclaimed performance in Nightcrawler, and then immediately had to do 2,000 situps and 6 hours of training each day to bulk for Southpaw, although as he told the poor Guardian journo, situps have nothing to do with being a good actor. “Oh, so you think doing sit-ups are equated with craft? Is that what you’re saying? Well maybe you don’t know what the craft of acting is. I mean, putting the time into preparation, being agile … no, I don’t think transforming your body physically has anything to do with the craft of acting.”

So what does go into being a successful, multi-award winning actor? A good education for a start. His studious parents made sure he had good schooling, despite getting started in movies so young. “My parents, even though I was acting at a young age,” he told Fox411, “always emphasised that and I went to school and I was lucky enough to go to college and as a result of that I think I really know what good material is. I know what moves me because I read the great material.”

The next step is to fight expectations. In business we’re constantly talking about pivoting from failure, or disrupting industries and the same can be done with acting or any profession really. Dan Gilroy, writer and director of Nightcrawler, admired Gyllenhaal’s ballsiness at avoiding being typecast as “generic, hunky white dude #2”.

To do that, he had to fight the industry logic tooth and nail, “because their default position is ‘no’,” Gilroy told The Guardian, mimicking a studio exec.

“‘What do you mean, you want to lose weight? Don’t lose weight! People know you as Jake, we’re hiring you as Jake! Let me just give you a nice haircut so that you look personable and women will like you.’ That’s the industry. He doesn’t listen. He’s ballsy.”

After this, Gilroy reflected on this common thread of Gyllanhall overworking himself. “He pushes himself harder than I or any director could ever push,” Gilroy says. “He puts more of himself into his characters than any other actor I’ve heard of.”

The next part to finding success is being able to enjoy yourself in the process. We’ve discussed how throwing himself physically into every role has been great for clickbait headlines, but it isn’t great for living. “I’ve grown up thinking somewhere, that if you’re really doing something great, it has to be punishing in some sort of way,” he told Esquire. “I’ve moved from that. After a few years of really pushing in different areas, pushing my body physically, pushing my mind, going a little too far in spaces, I’ve realised that joy is a huge part of it.”

“I think I sometimes push things too far, and I realised that I didn’t really get the result that I wanted because it wasn’t always fun, you know?”

Now he’s in perhaps his most fun role yet, in Spider-Man: Far From Home, playing Mysterio, a character who’s allegiances are temporary at best. It’s a masterstroke by Disney to give Gyllenhaal this role. Looking at him, you’re not 100% certain whether he’s meant to be a good guy or a bad guy. If Willem Dafoe or Kevin Bacon wandered into frame with a cape and a fishbowl helmet on, there’d be no question, these guys are out to kill you, but with Gyllenhaal, you can never be sure. He’s too fluid.

Young Spider-Man star Tom Holland has always had Gyllenhaal at the top of the list of actors he’d like to work with, and has managed to keep the comic-book nerds guessing with quotes to /Film. “It’s interesting, because when you hear the word ‘Mysterio,’ as a Spider-Man fan, you immediately think ‘villain,’” Holland told /Film. “That’s not the case in our film. He’s sort of a new addition to this world of heroes. He’s sort of my teammate throughout the movie.”

Let’s go back to that fishbowl helmet for a moment. The fact that we’re getting such a retro nerdy outfit in 2019 is just mind boggling. Sure, being in a superhero movie will probably mean Oscar nominators will glaze over, but Gyllenhaal’s trophy cabinet is probably groaning at this point anyway, but that’s just how far Disney has taken us down the rabbit hole. Regular audiences will barely blink at something that goofy now. This is a far shot from 2000’s first X-Men movie where Wolverine complains about his black biker leather jumpsuit. Cyclops leans back and quips, “What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?” Yes, it’s no longer time to be embarrassed about being a capes flick.

By the time you read this, Spiderman: Far From Home will be in full swing, landing in cinemas July 3rd. So you, future reader, will not need to do as much guessing as I, your lowly servant writer. In the meantime, Gyllenhaal is keeping himself occupied on Broadway, and loving it.

“For me, I’ve learned how much love there is when people decide to come to the theatre and that the love of the theatre is a very particular kind of thing. It’s the love for that live experience,” Gyllenhaal tells AOL. “It’s a commitment, and I consider it to be an honor every night when I get out there to perform for a large group of people who have gathered and paid for that specific thing. It’s something you don’t get when you do television or film.”

Gyllenhaal has taught us to stay fluid (not sexually, unless that’s what you’re into, then go crazy) career wise. Don’t be afraid to forge your own path or to get locked into being just the hero or the villain, because boxing yourself into only one or the other will always be a mistake.

 

Stills From Spiderman: Far From Home; ©2019 CTMG, Inc. All rights reserved.