Jake Gyllenhaal Holding Hands with Mystery Brunette in New York City

Jake Gyllenhaal holds hands with a mystery gal while taking a stroll on Friday (November 9) in New York City. UPDATE: Her name is Mahsa Jafarian, an Iranian graduate student enrolled in a master's degree programme at a college in New York, who met Jake on a train and they have been hanging out ever since. A source says, "He asked for her number and gave her a call a few days later to ask how she did on an exam she'd told him about... Mahsa thinks Jake is intelligent, well-rounded and a perfect gentleman - and she's completely smitten with him."

"Gyllenhaal has gone back to the theater. Since Sept. 20, he has been appearing in Nick Payne's off-Broadway play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet, giving eight performances a week at the Laura Pels Theatre at 111 West 46th Street. Gyllenhaal plays -- with a flawless English accent -- the well-intentioned but immature uncle of an overweight teenage girl whose parents are too busy to realize the extent of her emotional troubles. The play begs the question of whether his arrival on the scene as sort of a truth-teller makes the situation better or worse. Tickets cost $100, but the show, which runs through Nov. 25, has played to packed crowds every night, something that has not escaped Gyllenhaa's notice. "I can't tell you what a privilege it is to be up on stage every night," he says, "to know that 450 people filled the seats of a theater every night to come see four people work on a stage." The old saying goes, "Once you've seen Paris it's hard to go back to the farm." For Gyllenhaal, End of Watch and If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet seem to be something like Paris. It's not like he was previously making a living as a hack, but his work on these two projects has been so challenging -- and ultimately gratifying -- that he doesn't want to waste precious time on others that are not. As he puts it, "I have no intention of doing work, here-on-out, that doesn't take that same type of devotion and that same type of care." Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com