Prince of Persia Interview on-set

Jake Gyllenhaal - Publicity Still of "Brothers" (2009).

"You’ve done big movies like The Day After Tomorrow and you’ve had some opportunities to do a franchise movie, so what was it about this particular franchise that made you want to be involved in it?
Jake Gyllenhaal, on set of "Jarhead" (2005).

Jake Gyllenhaal: I think just on a personal front, it was just so unlikely and so unlike anything I’d ever played really, and any type of movie that I think anyone would expect, that I just kind of wanted to do it. (laughs) It felt like that personally, but also, more than anything, when I talked with Mike Newell about it, it wasn’t just like your normal video game adaptation. It was an actual massive epic that they had in the works. They had a real classic story that was emotional and real and filled with just ridiculous turns and twists, I mean, all over the place. Had you ever played the game before and do you feel any sort of responsibility playing such an iconic character?Gyllenhaal: I feel a responsibility because I think the prince in the video games, he has a personality and you know his story, but I think a lot of video games as an actor, just putting that kind of expression onto a character. You get to make a new path for what the character is as opposed to being nervous you’re going to screw up that’s already there. That to me I like and I think is fun. I’ve played a lot of real people in my life… Actually, there’s equal pressure in real people than video game characters, which is sort of strange. Yeah, I’ve played the game a lot more when I was really young, and I know the game in its Atari-like version. I went online when I first started researching stuff for the role. What was really important was for me personally to bring some sort of realism into this world that is not always fully based on reality. So often you can hide in all that stuff so easily, and to look at what say a real Persian prince would look like and then who the Prince of Persia is in the video game and then a whole slew of inspiration in between there.How did you develop the character or what did you bring to the role?Gyllenhaal: 40 days and 40 nights of misery. (laughs) The most important thing for me always is just somehow playing against what’s there. The development of the character was massively physical at first, just getting in shape and doing all that stuff and learning Parkour, learning how to swordfight, learning how to get into the mentality of a warrior, somebody who as written is someone who can really fight. That was a big part of it for me, and I knew that if I got through that, then I knew I’d be halfway there. And then the rest of it is just being able to… we worked on dialect and I have a British accent in the film and everyday on set, I’m in my accent and I very rarely bring it out only for special occasions, my real accent. All of those things. I could go into really pretentious crap for you, but I don’t like doing that. I’m going to lay off of it, but there’s just a lot of it.What has been the most fun part of making a movie like this? Is it the battles? Is it riding the horse across the desert in 103 degree heat? What’s the best part?Gyllenhaal: The best part of the movie I think is… God, I mean, you play like this when you’re a kid. This is how you play when you’re a kid, and you go outside and I remember specifically many times I would go outside and be like, “I play him and you play him and let’s fight!” And we’re just like doing that every day. (laughs) So the best part of it for me is because I’ve never done a lot of fighting—sword fighting, hand-on-hand, any type of combat that there is and any type of evasion and persuasion. More than that also I find really fun is being able to get humor and performance in the middle of it all, which I find so difficult. I have utter respect for people who can put that kind of thing, a performance or any type of feeling while you’re battling someone, because that’s like chewing gum and walking at the same time and that’s really tough for actors. (laughs) It really is difficult, and it’s a fun mindwork to say, “Okay, at this point, we can put that piece in.” That’s what I enjoyed the most. I actually enjoy the heat, so I did enjoy that and I think Morocco was unreal.So are you looking forward to shooting one or two more of these films assuming the first one does well?

Gyllenhaal: Yes, the truth is after doing this it’s going to be hard… well, I don’t know if it’s going to be hard, but it’s definitely going to be a different mentality to go back and do much smaller types of movies. There’s type of high when you make a movie like this, a type of excitement every day that is infectious. There are days that you get tired and some of the people I work with say to me, I’m like, “Man, I’m going to be exhausted. I’m going to need rest when I get done with this movie,” and they’re like, “You’re going to rest for two weeks and you’re going to want to make another one like it.” (laughs) And it’s kind of true. On my days off, I worked out twice on my Sunday off, because that’s where my head is. I’m prepared for whatever comes our way.Gyllenhaal: I remember there’s a whole scene with ostriches in the movie and there are real live ostriches, not CG ostriches. There’s not a CG’ed ostrich in this movie. They’re all real ostriches, highly paid, and we were all briefed on them for weeks before like “They’re these massive destructive creatures that can tear your heart out with their claws.” (laughs) I swear to God I never thought of an ostrich this way! And I was shaking in my boots when they finally brought them out and they’re (does an ostrich impression) and I walked up to it and one of my stuntmen was in the ring with them, and finally, I was like, “When am I going to be in a f*cking cage with ostriches again in my life? I gotta get in here!”Is it inspiring or intimidating to work with so many experienced actors like Daniel Craig and now Ben Kingsley?

Arterton: Absolutely inspiring. I tend to go into things head first, not really thinking about what I’m doing, which is sometimes better, then going, “Oh My God, I’m about to act with Ben Kingsley!” because then you’re all yourself, and that’s what they want ultimately anyway, and you’re just another actor working with them on this film ultimately, so that is brilliant, but I don’t really get to worry about it. I probably should. (laughs) I probably should when I’m being all cheeky and campy with Sir Ben Kingsley, but no, it’s brilliant and an honor.Were there any particular kind of skills you had to learn for this film, like any type of fighting?

Arterton: Yeah, I, well I had to learn how to horse ride ’cause I’d never done it before in my life, and it’s kind of become a real new sort of passion for me. Pretty much the whole cast went to Spain and learned to horse ride for 2 weeks, which was incredible to have that opportunity and then we all kind of continued it. Then I have to do loads of fighting but there isn’t a particular style to my fighting. It’s quite wild ’cause she’s never really been trained to fight so it’s just kind of go “aaaagh!” like that, but just doing it with some sort of skill. Where I went to drama school I trained in stage combat quite heavily so I had quite a bit of experience before.What’s your favorite part of shooting the film so far?

Arterton: Oh, God… I love all the action stuff. I think I should have really been a stuntwoman. I really enjoy it even though sometimes you think, “Oh, God, there are actually people that are trained to do this and they’re trained to get battered and bruised” but I’ve loved doing all of that and the fighting. It’s gobsmacking the sets and the costume and the sheer scale of this film and then you’re kind of put into into this completely different world and that is really, really fantastic. You don’t have to really imagine much ’cause it’s there designed right in front of you, and so that’s been brilliant as well.Can you talk about the relationship between your character and Jake’s character?Arterton: Yeah, so I play Tamina, who’s the princess of Alamut, which is a city that the Persians invade. I’m kind of kidnapped so I hate the Persians, although my character doesn’t really feel hate. She’s very spiritual so she just dislikes them (laughs) and they have this real kind of love-hate kind of relationship. It’s very full of banter and I like to compare it to Beatrice and Benedict in “Much Ado about Nothing.” Obviously, they fancy each other but they don’t show it. They find out all this stuff about the bad things that are happening in Persia, and so they kind of join forces and learn from each other and the film kind of like a journey. It follows them a lot, mainly Dastan, but she’s kind of like his right-hand girl and they have their own journeys which is to find themselves in a new light through each other’s upbringings. So there’s a lot of wit and banter, there’s also a romance there, there’s a lot of comedy but also a real seriousness as well, which is a really great thing about this film. It’s not just an action-adventure, it’s not just a romance, it’s not just this or that. There’s loads of drama, and it takes you in loads of different directions all the time. You think it’s gonna be like this and then it completely changes and becomes really dark or really light. So the relationship between Dastan and Tamina has got all of that.
Do your powers involve a lot of special effects and did they have to explain to you what they would look like later?It seems like there might be some political undertones to the story, because there’s an invasion, which might be… suspect. Can you talk about that?

Arterton: Yeah, there’s kind of a looking for weapons that don’t exist kind of thing. (laughs) With the target audience, it’s not to make that a huge thing, but it’s definitely there which makes it an interesting tale to tell and I think it’s fairly relevant for the times that we’re living in now, but there are lots of things like that so I think it’s interesting for many, many different sorts of audiences.What are you gonna do next?

Arterton: Well… at the moment, I feel like I wanna go and do some theatre, because I’ve been doing quite a lot of film work and big films as well, but there’s lots of new doors that have opened, which is very exciting so we’ll see but I wanna do something completely different ’cause I try and do that with every part, do something completely different so maybe I’ll play some fat old drug addict or something next". Source: www.slashfilm.com