Jake Gyllenhaal burst onto the scene in Richard Kelly‘s Donnie Darko and has to have one of the most interesting and diverse careers in Hollywood. He’s done quirky (Nightcrawler), romantic comedy (Love and other Drugs), science fiction (Source Code) and action (The Prince of Persia). Some films have been more successful than others, but for us Gyllenhaal is never better than when he’s got a meaty script and weighty character to sink his teeth into.
This week he stars as boxer Billy Hope in Antoine Fuqua‘s Southpaw. The story follows Hope’s struggle to regain his life and title after a tragic personal loss. Gyllenhaal gives a juggernaut of a performance in the film and we jumped at the opportunity to speak with him about the role.
There have been a lot of great boxing movies over the years but what was it about the script and subject of Southpaw that stood out for you?
I think that there are two things, first I’m very aware of the cliché and what has already been established, and the brilliance of the movies that have already been created in the genre. But the things that stood out were, one, a personal thing which was that this is a character who begins the movie using his anger with hatred really, his rage, as a motivation and as a way of gaining success and money and all of the conventional forms of success, fame. Then through that same form destroys his whole life. That same anger with hatred and it ends up destroying his life and he has to learn to an evolution how to fight with anger but without hatred in it. That comes from him facing a lot of things. I found that fascinating and very curious in my own anger and curious about exploring it, looking at it in a context that’s safe – at least pretty safe and that was interesting to me.
Also the story of him really becoming a father, even though he was a father, and learning how to do that. Antoine and I discussed very early on that if we could do anything that was a message, particularly because he was a very young father, and I think in most movies that I’ve seen in sort of Hollywood films, fathers are a certain age and had a kid at this age, our idea of what the appropriate age is for it is and to be a young father and to take responsibility and to think that this job is a really honourable one was something that Antoine really wanted to get through and I love that story. I love the story about what it is to be a father which I think the movie is essentially saying is that you have to be strong enough to be vulnerable.
The saying is never work with children or animals; you did children this time. Oona [Laurence] seemed remarkably wise for her age, what was it like working with her and playing a dad?
Oona is probably one of the best actors that I’ve ever worked with to be honest. There’s something about her curiosity and intelligence, but also just the fact that she’s a regular girl with no performance, but she’s highly skilled. She’s a Tony award winner. She came in with these over-sized tennis shoes, the same outfit she wears in the movie with her glasses. When she came in and read we were improvising and her improvisation was extraordinary. She had created this world and I had been reading with a lot of other actors and they were very talented and saying things that were really interesting but all of a sudden, we were talking about dolls and she said “Oh this is this doll and she’s named this” and then “He’s named this” and “Don’t mind his curly hair”, all this stuff. I just thought her imagination is right there and that’s exactly the imagination that needs to be able to bring him [Billy] back and draw him back. She’s also really an adult in a lot of ways, she’s very mature. Oona has a wisdom about her and she brought that too. I think she’s brilliant.
What can you as an actor, and as a person, learn from a boxer?
There’s a sacrifice and a sort of obsessive preparation and a true science to how a boxer approaches their job and their work. I actually do believe that preparation, research and time and craft is essential to being an actor. The amount of time you put into preparation however it shows itself in a performance and is ultimately much more interesting for an audience to watch. Just in terms of preparation you can learn a lot from a boxer. I could go on and on but there are probably other questions that people want to ask, but I could literally go on and on. I think just frankly the humility of it’s not all about your face is very important too.
How do you deal with being hit?
First it’s just shit! Not to say I prefer [face shots] but I don’t really love body shots. I would say being hit in the body, particularly in just the right spot, really is no fun.
But being punched in the face is?
Well, I would say that what’s interesting about a body shot is if you look at many fights and a lot of knockouts is that they are initially a knockout pre-empted by a body shot. Not always, but a lot of times the most weakening spot is getting hit in the body. There’s so much pain in an organ that you then have access. That is not fun, but they’re all different kinds of hits. Some kind of feel like nothing and that was okay and some are really sort of debilitating and strange. They make you very vulnerable, at least for me personally, and that’s interesting just in terms of the metaphor of it. I think the movie is about someone becoming vulnerable as opposed to being “Oh you’ve hit me and now I’m going to hit harder back”. It’s “You hit me and that hurt and I’m going to express that”.
Did working on this movie change you in any way?
I think every movie is a journey and whatever we do will have an effect on our lives. I spent a very long time with the professionals who are in the fight world, I came away with a skill and a discipline that I will have for the rest of my life. I will box for the rest of my life. I will train like that for the rest of my life. I think it’s confidence inducing, very humbling, and a real work of body and mind. I also think that the relationships I’ve made with people in the boxing world and particularly people that worked with me everyday, I still [see], it was a year that we finished and I’m still talking to them all the time, seeing them all the time. There are many things that I picked up, I’m now an avid boxing fan.
How was it to be in the ring with the pro boxers? Were they told to hold back?
Better to be in a ring with a pro boxer to be honest. The accuracy of their punches is very reliable. Their sense of distance, and the science about distance and geometry of angles is really confidence inducing. Much more scary to be with an actor in the ring because they are full of something to prove and insecurity and no expertise. So for me that scene with Victor Ortiz where Victor is just popping me over and over again and all I can do is defend, well some of those punches really do land. But a lot of the times I knew I could move the way I would move and know that Victor would know the angles. Victor could pop me but he wasn’t really going to knock me out. That was strangely much more calming because they’re experts. He knows the difference between half an inch and a quarter inch and then a whole inch. He really knows and he can feel that instinctively. The difference is really becoming friends with them first, but there’s a real respect also I think for a professional fighter when you’re in there with them, you know you’re in their space. That you respect their space enough and to me it is that way in anything that I prepare. Any role that I’ve ever played where someone does it professionally I have a profound respect for the job before I get into it. Because I know that that respect will reflect back on them and I will learn more and I will ultimately earn their respect, because I deeply respect what they do. Not walking in going “I know what I’m doing”. I found that all the professional fighters I worked with, there is just…I love those guys. It means a lot that they would get into the ring with somebody who really knows very little and give the same respect they would another fighter. I was really moved by that.
Did you follow boxing before the film?
No. Not really at all. As a kid I knew Tyson and those big fights, like Mayweather and Pacquiao fight. But no, not really at all, not until I started doing this movie. Then five months of it non-stop and I love the fight game. I love boxing and follow it avidly.
Did you have any health concerns given how you have altered your weight dramatically for different roles?
I think you have to be careful. I think there’s a narrative of actors taking risks that I think is dangerous to put out there. Particularly as there are young actors thinking about craft and what your devotion to craft is. I think if someone came to me and said “I’m going to be playing a drug addict, should I try it?”, I’d be like “No!”, you know what I mean? I think that there’s a fine line, you have to have a craft, you have to have a technique and you have to know that these things are done with preparation and with a watchful [eye] of an expert. When I did Nightcrawler I went to a doctor first and it wasn’t like I was doing what Christian (Bale) did in The Machinist but I was very careful about it. I had an intent, a feeling I was trying to get at. When I hit that feeling and I knew, I stayed there. It just depends on intent, it depends on why you’re doing it – and I think you have to be very mindful about that. Yeah, it affects your body but I try and be as safe as I can, sometimes things get a little dangerous but you always have to be mindful.
How difficult is it to say goodbye to a character when you finish a production, and are there any that you’d like to check back in on? Maybe check in on Lou Bloom and see how his companies are doing?
(Chuckles) There are some characters that I’d love to be able to play again, though I probably shouldn’t. I think there are ways of that happening. But that’s the great thing, you let it go, it’s always hard to let it go, but then there’s another way to find other characters but I don’t know…Back by popular demand, Lou Bloom! (laughs) No, but I do love…you do fall in love with the characters. That’s one thing I’ve decided over the past four or five years is can I fall in love with this character? Which means how far can I go? How far will I go? So you wake up every morning even when it’s this crazy character having a really fun time.
Antoine was with you throughout the training – did you enjoy that, or are you someone who prefers to work alone?
It depends on the director and it depends what they want. I really do prefer getting to know somebody because I think that when I get to know them I can give them even more. When we both sacrifice a little bit to get to know each other I think you get the opportunity to be really vulnerable for them. But then there’s just some people that you just respect in a certain way initially and they want a certain thing and you are there and you are their ‘actor for hire’, every relationship is different. I really do love having a relationship with my director; when I made two movies in a row with Denis Villeneuve it was just the second hand we had because we’d spent so much time together. Even if one movie was a rehearsal for another (which it wasn’t but it almost functioned that way). It’s just so much easier to be creative in my opinion. But I think sometimes that tension and that fear of what they’re going to think and all of your preparation and not hearing from them – that can work too.
Did you not get frustrated with him being there?
No. I’m a big boy. I don’t use a director as a parent, I have my own and what they didn’t teach me I have to learn for myself. I don’t expect that from them [my directors], I’m there to do a job and try and service their vision. I’m very, very particular about the boundaries with that. I think that’s allowed me to do work that I feel really good about because I recognised how solid the family I have in my life is and so no matter what, whatever risks I take, even if they fail, I definitely still have them. It does make it easier and more comfortable, I find myself in exchange with people I know more comfortably, and when you’re more comfortable I think you have more access to certain feelings. It doesn’t mean you have to be in a comfortable space in each scene but I do think like Antoine, there was a day when Antoine knew we didn’t know exactly what the scene was, we didn’t know exactly where we were going. He said “You stay in your trailer and I really want everyone to be quiet when you come on set. So I’m going to call you when we’re ready for you. You do your thing and when we’re ready I’ll call you” and I was like “Okay, I don’t want any noise, I don’t want anything”. He set it up to make the space real for me. He knew how tough the scene was going to be and he just loves his actors and he does that for them all over the place. He creates a space and he called me and I went up in the elevator and went down, it was really amazing, the whole crew was there, everyone had done their work and I came on and sat down, did the scene and we did a take and then another and another and we finished the scene but he got what he needed from me because he created this space. Because he knew me and he knew that there were things in that scene in particular that really messed with me. He created that space and it was a really…there was a moment that you went “Oh wow”, this thing we do, which is a little crazy and absurd if you think about what it involves, really does require trust. He really, really earned my trust and I hope I really earned his. He got things from me as a result of it.
I sometimes think that being a director is being the ultimate manipulation. Ultimately they’re doing everything to create this thing. I don’t believe that of him. We talked a few months ago during editing the movie. He was debating what to cut out and he was like “I just don’t want to cut this out, I don’t want to take this out, I love what you do”. I remember I had to say to him “If it doesn’t work for the movie, it’s okay”. It was almost like he had to say I care about what we did so much, what he created, that’s the director he is with his actors. That relationship was very important. Having that time with him.
Being in its infancy the film was created for Eminem. Was there any part of his personality you wanted to infuse into the role?
No, no. I mean that there were things early on that he had influence on and developed early versions of the script and then as soon as I came on I think I had a totally different perspective of what the story was. It would have definitely been a different movie but no. None of the research I did really involved him but I think when he saw the movie he really loved the movie. That’s why he agreed [to be on the soundtrack]. I think it does reflect something that he feels or has been through and that means a lot to me. He is by proxy and also indirectly through his music, which was with me almost every day, probably on loop for a couple of hours every day. His music was always motivating me, he’s definitely a deeply deep part of the character and the movie as a result of that.
Southpaw arrives in UK cinemas on Friday 24th July.
