with the only constant being how unprepared he
is for either. It requires a lot of tricky tonal shifts,
sometimes midsentence. But Gyllenhaal revels in
it, doing two things at the same time, blurring the
edges between them. He asked Payne for more as
they developed the script.
Close Gyllenhaal observers, and there are many,
especially among the film- student crowd, note that
the actor excels in being two often contradictory
types at once. The Marine in Jarhead who never sees
action. The cameraman in Nightcrawler who begins
to direct the news. The college professor in Enemy
who has a stuntman twin. Tellingly, the actor named
his production company Nine Stories, after a book
by J.D. Salinger, who insisted his writing never be
adapted for film.
Even the star’s first foray into the superhero
world is a meta-exercise. Gyllenhaal’s less com-
pelled by the obvious moral of the Mysterio story
line—that if you create enough fear, people will
believe anything—and more in the nature of be-
lief. “I think it’s been made very clear that we’re in
a time where truth is very confusing, and we have
people in our leadership making that confusing,”
he says. “To me, the more interesting thing is that
we also need to be careful about the myths that
we tell. And who we believe in.” Gyllenhaal par-
ticipates in one of this generation’s most success-
ful mythmaking enterprises by playing a character
who calls into question everything about the mak-
ing of myths.
It’s tempting to think that having processed all
that, the actor is relishing the chance to return to a
more primal form of storytelling: two guys and their
testimonies. But he insists that’s not the appeal of
the play. What he loves, he says, is the response. Not
(just) the applause or the energy of a live audience,
but the recognition people have of their lives. After
the show theatergoers line up to tell him about their
fathers or their children. “I’ve never felt it from any-
thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “To hear the stories
back at me, at such a consistent rate, that is unlike
anything I’ve been a part of. I mean it just hit some-
thing.” It’s almost as if Gyllenhaal has discovered
that while oddballs are interesting to play, humans
are interesting to talk to.
‘To me,
the more
interesting
thing is
that we
also need to
be careful
about the
myths that
we tell. And
who we
believe in.’
JAKE GYLLENHAAL,
actor
DINA LITOVSKY—REDUX FOR TIME
11
