Jake Gyllenhaal living in the cinematic world in "Prisoners" (MTV Interview)

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Gyllenhaal has made a business of starring in mid-sized, well-received projects like "Source Code," "End of Watch," and this week's "Prisoners." In the new thriller from director Denis Villeneuve, Gyllenhaal plays an ace detective haunted by his only unsolved case, the disappearance of two young girls.

An example of that is "Prisoners." Gyllenhaal's character, Detective Loki, obviously shares a profession with the character he played in "End of Watch," a similarity that scares away most actors, who are often afraid of repeating themselves. For Gyllenhaal, it just meant that he had to explore the role further.

What ultimately helped him make up his mind was a conversation with Villeneuve, who had just directed him in another TIFF film, "Enemy."

"[Villeneuve] offered me this film saying, 'I know this about you. I know you can do this.' I went, 'I'm going to trust this man and this relationship,' " Gyllenhaal recalled. "And this character is so different from the other. Just because he's a cop doesn't mean anything." "Prisoners" opens in theaters on Friday. Source: www.mtv.com

Gyllenhaal: I think Denis and I also both deeply believe in the unconscious and the power of the unconscious and we live in the cinematic world, at least in popular cinema where everything needs to be supposedly explained or brought to the surface structurally and consciously so that people understand what's happening. But I think we long for that as an audience, that unconscious connection and the choices we make suddenly and his attention to detail.

Denis has taught me a deeply important thing—he’s helped me discover the unconscious connection between the director and the audience. And he allowed me to explore these ideas because we both understood and respect that idea and you could see that in his work directing “Prisoners.” That attention to detail, particularly in places where only a handful of people could be able to masterfully guide that story and keep that tension, I think that's because we were working in a kind of elevated harmony. Without a doubt that added to this experience. Source: blogs.indiewire.com