Jake Gyllenhaal in Details magazine, September 2012

"My whole life," he says, "I'd come to a scene and just ask for something real. I'd say, 'Please, just tell me what's going on. All the research, how your character picks up a fork, it'll all come when we know the truth.'" He's talking about a personal and professional evolution that accelerated during the months of his preproduction involvement in 2011's Source Code. The story—a soldier is enabled by technology to relive eight crucial minutes, over and over, until he gets it right and saves the world—resonated deeply with him. "Now the time's come to turn that on myself"—searching, over and over, for the truth—"and it's 'Game on.'

Gyllenhaal has positioned himself in front of the camera, giving himself an extreme close-up before the third and final take, his bearded face filling the monitor with one expression of suffering after another. Almost instinctively, his hand rises to cover his mouth in horror. As D.H. Lawrence said, "a young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand over the demon's mouth sometimes."

Ayers has seen it before, in End of Watch. "That's Jake," he says. "He's a genuinely sweet guy, but he's also got this real darkness, this rage he's running from. All the great actors have it, believe me. It's what you do with it."


"I don't run anymore. Do I take care of my body and take conditioning seriously? Yes. But exercising regularly doesn't fit the energy of the character I'm playing now."


Until he nails it—not with horror but with old-fashioned anxiety. Villeneuve and Gyllenhaal quickly agree it's the best expression. The decision is key, since it will be the take that Gyllenhaal, as Anthony, will be acting against when his two opposing selves meet. After readying himself to inhabit the part of the vain actor, Gyllenhaal heads off to shoot publicity stills in a nearby room. Flashes go off, and then an imposingly handsome man in a leather jacket and motorcycle boots barrels out with that broad-shouldered, get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way gait such men move with. It takes a second to register it's Gyllenhaal, as Anthony.

Jake Gyllenhaal on the cover of "Details" magazine, September 2012 issue

A beer arrives for him, half of it vanishing in the time it takes me to get the tape recorder going, and as the first three of our ten delicate courses slowly arrive, Gyllenhaal's plates empty fast. A suspiciously large number of beautiful waitresses deliver the respective courses, glancing sideways at him as they linger over descriptions of each dish and continually align fresh sets of chopsticks. That's the only clue I'm sitting with a celebrity. Source: www.details.com