Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal (born December 19, 1980 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actor.
The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, he began acting at the age of ten. Following his first lead role in October Sky, he starred in the indie Cult Classic Donnie Darko, in which he played a psychologically troubled teenager alongside his older sister, Maggie. In 2002, he starred in another indie film, The Good Girl, alongside Jennifer Aniston. In 2004, he appeared in the Science Fiction film The Day After Tomorrow, portraying a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event.
He then played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead in 2005. The same year, his role as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain earned him critical acclaim. For his performance he won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the Academy Award in the same category. He has since played the lead roles in many notable films, including Zodiac, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Love & Other Drugs, Source Code, and End of Watch.
Selected filmography:
- City Slickers (1991) as Daniel Robbins
- Homicide: Life on the Street (1994) as Matthew "Matt" Ellison
- October Sky (1999) as Homer Hickam
- Bubble Boy (2001) as Jimmy Livingston
- Donnie Darko (2001) as Donnie Darko
- The Good Girl (2002) as Thomas "Holden" Worther
- The Day After Tomorrow (2004) as Sam Hall
- Brokeback Mountain (2005) as Jack Twist
- Jarhead (2005) as Anthony "Swoff" Swofford
- Proof (2005) as Harold "Hal" Dobbs
- Zodiac (2007) as Robert Graysmith
- Brothers (2009) as Tommy Cahill
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) as Dastan
- Love & Other Drugs (2010) as Jamie Randall
- Source Code (2011) as Colter Stevens
- End of Watch (2012) as Officer Taylor
- Enemy (2013) as Adam Bell & Anthony Clair
- Prisoners (2013) as Detective Loki
- Nightcrawler (2014) as Louis "Lou" Bloom
- Southpaw (2015) as Billy Hope
- Everest (2015) as Scott Fischer
- Nocturnal Animals (2016) as Edward Sheffield & Tony Hastings
- Life (2017) as Dr. David Jordan
- Okja (2017) as Dr. Johnny Wilcox
- Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) as Mort Vandewalt
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) as Quentin Beck / Mysterio
- Spirit Untamed (2021) as James "Jim" Prescott
- The Guilty (2021) as Joe Baylor
- Ambulance (2022) as Danny
- Strange World (2022) as Searcher Clade
- The Covenant (2023) as John Kinley
He provides examples of:
- Dawson Casting: Donnie Darko was sixteen, and Jake was nineteen.
- Doing It for the Art: "The truth is most of the films that make a lot of money no one remembers, and I'm not interested in making films that no one remembers."
- Dyeing for Your Art: Gained five pounds of muscle and got a high and tight haircut for Jarhead.
- Enforced Method Acting: In order to understand the police training for End of Watch, he and the rest of the cast were all tased.
- Fake Brit: Combined with The Queen's Latin for quite a good attempt in Prince of Persia. It runs in the family it seems.
- Fan Community Nickname: His fans refer to themselves as "Gyllenhaalics".
- Mr. Fanservice: Tends to do shirtless scenes in his films.
- Real-Life Relative: He and his sister Maggie played siblings in Donnie Darko. Retroactively with Peter Sarsgaard in Jarhead, as the latter married Maggie after they made the film, making him and Jake brother-in-laws.
- Star-Making Role: Donnie Darko's cult appeal was his breakthrough role for most. If not that, then definitely The Day After Tomorrow and Jarhead.
- Those Two Actors: Starred alongside Chris Cooper in October Sky, Jarhead, and Demolition. He even refers to Cooper as his mentor.
- What Could Have Been:
- He was the first choice for Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks. However, his parents forbade him to be in it as the film would have taken him out of town for two months (it was shot in Minnesota).
- He was really hoping to get the part of Christian in Moulin Rouge!. He went through months of auditions and was down to the final three, along with Ewan McGregor and Heath Ledger. Ultimately it went to Ewan.
- Auditioned for Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, and didn't realize he needed an English accent at first. He heard back it was apparently one of the worst auditions.
- Was set to play Spider-Man in Spider-Man 2 due to Tobey Maguire having injured his back while filming Seabiscuit. While Jake was preparing for the role, Tobey recovered to reprise his role as Spider-Man.
- Auditioned for and was one of the top contenders for the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, and was also on the shortlist to play Harvey Dent in its 2008 sequel. His real-life sister ultimately played Bruce and Dent's love interest in the latter.
- Was, along with Matt Damon, the studio's first choice for the role of Jake Sully in Avatar, but director James Cameron chose to cast the then-unknown Sam Worthington instead.
- He was cast as one of the Princes in Into the Woods, but dropped out to do Nightcrawler instead.
