ABOVE: Watch Jake Gyllenhaal on Global’s The Morning Show.
TORONTO — Jake Gyllenhaal believes technology has made his job more challenging.
“Acting is competing with computer generated stuff,” he explained Friday during an appearance on Global’s The Morning Show, “and in that way you’ve got to work even harder.”
Gyllenhaal, 34, certainly can’t be accused of not working hard.
For his new movie Southpaw he trained hard to play a former boxing champion who fights to get his life back for the sake of his young daughter following the death of his wife (played by Canada’s Rachel McAdams).
Just as Gyllenhaal transformed himself to play gaunt Lou Bloom in 2014’s Nightcrawler (a role that earned him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations), he bulked up to play Southpaw‘s Billy Hope.
“The craft of acting is a very interesting one to me and something that I don’t always feel is around acting as much anymore these days,” Gyllenhaal said. “You know, the idea of immersing yourself into something, learning about life and about what’s actually happening.
“Reality is what makes acting so interesting to me — not sort of using it as a way of avoiding reality. I like getting in there and seeing what people are doing every day and learning.”
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Gyllenhaal also said it’s important to have a good work ethic.
“I just believe in hard work no matter what you do,” he said. “I just believe in getting down into whatever you do, whatever it is.
“I try and put that same mentality into my job even if it’s absurd some of the time.”
Canada has played a major part in Gyllenhaal’s career. His first blockbuster was the 2004 made-in-Montreal disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow and he earned an Oscar nomination for his work in 2005’s Alberta-shot Brokeback Mountain.
Gyllenhaal also made 2011’s Source Code in Montreal and 2013’s Enemy in Toronto — the latter for Quebec director Denis Villeneuve, who also worked with Gyllenhaal for the thriller Prisoners.
And, Gyllenhaal was almost in a movie about Canada’s favourite winter sport.
“I remember at the time not really understanding what that was all about.”
Asked if he choose roles that will have a lasting impact, Gyllenhaal replied: “I don’t know about that.
“I just try and listen to myself and ask myself what I really love watching, what I love doing.”
BELOW: Watch the trailer for Southpaw.
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