Deep down you really want to hate Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s an unjust and unfair feeling, but an easy one to succumb to. The first time you clap eyes on his impossibly pretty face (a disarming mix of puppy dog eyes and wolfish grin), you kind of want to punch it. When you add in his enviable connections – his father’s a respected director, his sister’s Maggie, his godparents are Paul Newman and Jamie Lee Curtis and his romantic connections (he’s been linked to Kirsten Dunst and now his Rendition co-star Reese Witherspoon) – and the fact he’s already banked more money than you’ll see in your lifetime, you can convince yourself that not a court in the land would convict you. You’d be wrong, and the fact that Time Out is not facing assault charges is down to two things. One, the man is the most ridiculously talented and bravest actors going; two, he could also be the nicest.
If you discount his genes, Jake’s big break was playing Billy Crystal’s son in City Slickers. Fearing losing their child to an industry they knew so well, his father actually forbade him from taking up a role in The Mighty Ducks and sent him off to school. ‘My parents decided they wanted me to have a more normal childhood,’ says Gyllenhaal. ‘Because my first films were so much fun to do, I had romanticised the whole process of making movies. I hated them at the time for it. I thought it was everything I wanted to do then. But, now I thank them.’ The validity of this ‘normal’ childhood aside – being taught to drive by Butch Cassidy hardly screams average Joe – the idea of Gyllenhaal as brooding teenager is an easy one to envisage. His breakout performance was a mesmerising turn in 2001’s Donnie Darko as a troubled teen (think the ability to control the space-time continuum rather than acne issues) wrestling with his sanity. This was followed by another study in adolescent angst in The Good Girl. His character, Holden, shared with Gyllenhaal an obsession with JD Salinger – the actor’s production company is named after a collection of Salinger’s stories – and it’s easy to cast this young lupine star as the Catcher In The Rye’s little boy lost. This image was enforced by Jake’s stage debut as a dejected 19-year-old runaway in This Is Our Youth. Gyllenhaal concedes the point, but is keen to put his young woes behind him. ‘For me, that play was the last of my teenagers-in-transition,’ he says. ‘Now, I want to play a man.’ But it wasn’t the Hollywood machismo of an action flick he chose to break the teenage typecast. Instead he took the role as a cowboy in love with his fellow cowpoke in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. The film caused a sensation, winning three Oscars and earning Gyllenhaal praise for his sensitive performance. Surprisingly, it was a role he almost walked away from. ‘I originally turned down the role but after meeting with Ang Lee, the director, I realised that the theme of sexuality would be secondary to the primary theme of love. To me, that is what is lacking in most of the love stories I’ve seen. That film showed a real idea of love, not just a cliché.’
Gyllenhaal continued his forays into maturity with another critically-acclaimed role in David Fincher’s Zodiac, again proving his knack for picking films that connect with the head as well as the heart – even his one true blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow touched on issues of global warming. ‘I’m drawn to movies that say something,’ he says. ‘To me, the movies I’ve been in are full of interesting ambiguities. And for them to succeed means that audiences are responding to that uncertainty, that they do not always want something always totally clear and spoon-fed.’
His latest role in Rendition is certainly far from clear-cut. While Peter Sarsgaard plays the good guy – the Senator’s aide who helps Reese Witherspoon’s character find her missing Egyptian husband – Gyllenhaal is the CIA agent in charge of his interrogation and eventual torture. People may be able to believe Jake as a 40-year-old homosexual cowboy, but can they buy him as a bad guy? According to Jake, it was this moral ambiguity that attracted him to the role. ‘I really liked that there was no right and wrong, at least as far as my character is concerned,’ he says. ‘There is only the issue of: does the interrogation work or not? Who knows if what he ultimately does really accomplishes anything. I certainly hope that people don’t leave the movie cheering for him.’
Rendition is the latest in a number of films to tackle the current political climate – see Robert Redford’s rather more heavy-handed Lions For Lambs, also released this week. As the film industry’s heavyweights look to the War On Terror, as they once did to Vietnam, to prove that the big screen could handle big issues, does the famously political Gyllenhaal think films can make a difference? ‘For me, the politics is secondary to the human story,’ he says, choosing his words carefully. ‘As an actor, I’m always interested in the human side of politics. In this movie, everybody – be it Meryl Streep’s character of the CIA boss, Alan Arkin as the Senator or Peter Sarsgaard as the political aide – believes they’re acting out of the best intentions. They all think they’re doing some kind of good. They’re all acting on what they’ve been told, but who’s to say that is the truth? I think people need to question whether they’re being told the truth in situations like this. Too many people have lost the desire to know the truth. Sometimes, people actually prefer ignorance, as the truth can be painful. I know I have felt that way.’
But being raised in such a liberal household – his parents won an American Civil Liberties Union commendation for their activism – he must have a view on the current state of the world. ‘I get 15 emails a day from my mother and each one has links to these political blogs she thinks I should check out,’ he says, heckles slightly up. ‘I do think that you have to be very careful when you are playing a part that you do not let your own beliefs influence your performance. That said, when I go to foreign countries I tell people I’m Canadian.’
And with one final dip into his pool-deep eyes and a flash of the grin, the interview’s over. He lifts his coat and prepares to step back to his charmed life with its accompanying envy. The worst thing is he doesn’t even care about the green-eyed stares. ‘Even a few years ago, I needed a lot more validation; I needed everyone to like me,’ he remembers. ‘But that attention doesn’t work for me anymore. I realised acting couldn’t fill that need.’ So Hollywood’s hottest property doesn’t even have the decency to carry an actorly ego or desperately crave attention and affection. Nicest guy in Hollywood? What a git.
