Jake Gyllenhaal seems fearless in his choices as an actor – as can be witnessed by his astonishing transformation in Southpaw. But the 34-year old actor (and two-time Golden Globe nominee) reveals to HFPA member Tina Christensen that fear is actually what drives him.
There is a wild man’s look in Jake Gyllenhaal’s eyes as he lets out an impulsive scream to the camera and for a moment moves his ripped, bulked-up body in a seemingly uncontrolled manner. Blood is coming down his chin and running into his mouth from a hit he just took in the ring. His tatted, muscular body is heavily bruised. As he bares his teeth the black boxing mouth guard with the white letters ‘Hope’ is revealed through stains of blood. You can almost smell the sweat and feel his intense focus.
“He wanted my first initial response,” says Jake Gyllenhaal about Antoine Fuqua, who directed the actor in Southpaw, in which he portrays boxer Billy Hope defending his championship in New York’s famous Madison Square Gardens. “That first shot just felt very honest. I wanted to do the movie to explore my own anger and Billy is a very angry character and I thought that this script allowed me to go on that journey. So the first shot was an opportunity to express this thing that I feel. And it felt good at the time and at the same time afterwards a bit shameful, but in terms of what it does in the movie I think it is very important for what it communicates.” Billy Hope is at the height of his career when we see him in the ring in Madison Square Garden. His wife (played by Rachel McAdams), who grew up in a Hell’s Kitchen orphanage like him, is by his side in the audience and his young daughter is at home in bed in what we later learn is a huge, luxurious mansion with a majestic swimming pool. But the look in Billy Hope’s eyes hints at his true nature – tormented boxer, and a very aggressive one. He came from nothing and had to fight his way to where he is, creating his support system from scratch. He seems to be driven by fear – as reflected in the statement on his back in huge letters to constantly remind him: “Fear no Man”.
“This was something Antoine pushed me towards,” says Jake Gyllenhaal about the tattoo on his back. “It reflects his boldness – the sort of bold very primary, very primal thing that he needed and wanted from me.”
In recent years, Jake Gyllenhaal has transformed himself into a truly prolific actor. He is one of the most fearless and complex actors of his generation, truly committed to the demanding projects he undertakes. In 2014 he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role in as the sociopathic cameraman Louis Bloom, hustling for bloody scenes in the streets of Los Angeles in director Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler. Gyllenhaal lost more than 20 pounds to play the character, to physically describe him as ‘hungry for more’. But soon after wrapping Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal had to get in shape for Southpaw and spent six months in the gym bulking up and learning how to box. Again, he seems fearless, even though this is not actually the case, he says. There was little fear of getting his so-called ‘movie star face’ ruined, but a lot of fear of not performing well in the ring.
“Well, there is the joke that it’s a moneymaker,” he says about ruining the handsome face that has made him a perfect heartthrob in romantic movies like Love & Other Drugs.
“I love hard work and I love pushing myself physically and I love that feeling,” he continues. “I think there’s some part of me that likes pushing the edge and I like to learn from people who really do in real life and people go to the edge of things, and I am fascinated by that mentality and I wonder what drives those people.”
Gyllenhaal trained six months with the former professional boxer Terry Claybon to get in physical shape and look like a real boxer – but also to actually become one and have the mindset of a boxer. He gained 15 pounds of pure muscle following an elaborate and intensive training program, so he was ready to start filming June last year – and to take some real punches.
“The process was driven by fear,” Gyllenhaal says. “Psychologically I was humbled almost every single day. I was humbled every time at the end of every training session, I was told to go and shadowbox, and it was the most humiliating. I love being in front of an audience, I love performing in front of an audience, and I love even being behind a table and talking and there’s a little part of me that really loves this. But in a ring shadowboxing it was like so humiliating every time.”
He does have one thing in common with boxers: he likes a knockout performance. He is a ‘winner’ like Billy. “Yes!” he says and laughs shyly. “But I care less about that than the desire to tell a great story. I don’t want to do something that has been done before. I don’t want to play characters that are derivative and I want to do something original. That’s much better.”
Tina Christensen