Up to this point in his career, Jake Gyllenhaal can be found, most notably, in a unique and surreal cult film ("Donnie Darko"), in sharply observed American indies ("The Good Girl," "Lovely & Amazing"), tense Middle East conflict dramas ("Jarhead," "Rendition"), a David Fincher-directed serial-killer thriller ("Zodiac"), an English-language remake of a Danish dogma piece ("Brothers"), and an Oscar-winning love story between two men ("Brokeback Mountain," opposite Heath Ledger, of course).
So, what's this dedicated thespian doing in sixth-century armor, leaping walled citadels in a $150 million Walt Disney sword-and-sandals saga adapted from a video game?
"It's definitely a different type of movie than I've made before," says Gyllenhaal. "In the past, I looked at acting and making movies maybe a bit too seriously, and took myself a little bit too seriously. And I thought it was time to make a movie that was like the ones I loved when I was a kid."
Those would be the "Indiana Jones" titles, he says, "The Goonies" and "E.T."
"And 'Willow,'" he adds, making note of the 1988 Ron Howard/George Lucas collaboration, a Middle Earth-ian fantasy made more than a decade before Peter Jackson got his hands on "The Lord of the Rings."
"When I think about being a kid, I think about the wonder of these movies. And I wanted to make a movie like that. And with 'Prince of Persia,' I thought this is a little bit of all those things mixed into one."
"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" opened Friday. It was shot in Morocco and at Pinewood Studios in London. Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina costar, along with an army of extras, stunt doubles, horses, and CG beasts.
Buffing up for the fight
For Gyllenhaal, 29, getting into shape for all the running and jumping, falling and fighting required of his ancient-times action hero involved a rigorous training regimen.
"It was really, really hard," he deadpans, on the phone from Burbank, Calif., earlier in the week. "It's really hard being an actor. Getting paid to exercise. ...
"Yeah, it was a day-in, day-out, pride-swallowing siege that you never fully know about," he continues, quoting loosely from another of his favorite films, "Jerry Maguire." "There's a lot of acrobatics in the movie, and parkour, and sword fighting and martial arts. I would work with gymnasts and I would train in parkour and I'd work with the stunt guys."
Repetition, he says, was key.
"In order to do a sword fight, to really feel believable, and dangerous, doing it over and over and over again was a must. Someone said to me, which I love, 'There's nothing that 10,000 repetitions can't cure.'"
Watching old Errol Flynn swashbucklers also helped Gyllenhaal get into the groove.
"An absolute genius. He was a massive influence on this part, too."
Gyllenhaal says that he played the original, side-scrolling version of "Prince of Persia" when it came out on the first Mac computer. "I played it when I was a kid, and then took like a 20-year-or-so hiatus from the game," he says. "I didn't play 'Prince of Persia' again until I started doing research for the movie, and then I played it every day, three times a day.
"Like I said, it's really hard being an actor. Getting paid to get in shape and play video games."
Gyllenhaal hails from a showbiz family. His father, Stephen, is a director; his mother, Naomi Foner, a screenwriter. His older sister, Maggie, was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar this year for her performance in "Crazy Heart." Gyllenhaal's first film role was as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy "City Slickers."
More typical films
Since making "Prince of Persia" (yes, he's signed a sequel clause, "so if people respond to it, I'm back"), the actor has starred in two more typically Gyllenhaalian projects:
"Source Code," "a science-fiction action thriller" with Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan, and Jeffrey Wright, from Duncan Jones, the director of the eerie art-house android piece "Moon."
"Love and Other Drugs," a romantic comedy with Gyllenhaal as a pharmaceutical salesman who woos Anne Hathaway. Ed Zwick wrote and directed.
"Annie and I definitely got pretty intimate, because there are a lot of love scenes in the movie, a lot of sexy scenes in that movie. You have to let it all hang out, so to speak."
