Jake Gyllenhaal starred in many roles where the character is overly complicated, bizarre, or probably both and in between. Clearly, the actor has a penchant for complex figures that would baffle the viewers, and that is exactly what he did with his character in Denis Villeneuve’s 2013 film Prisoners.
Gyllenhaal always aims to give his best portrayals, but he would not be able to do that if the material does not reflect it. Being the dedicated actor that he is, he’s more than willing to contribute to revising the script.
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Jake Gyllenhaal Altered His Character In Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners
During his appearance in Hot Ones, actor Jake Gyllenhaal recalled his experience collaborating with Dune director Denis Villeneuve in Prisoners. He played a detective whose job is to find two missing girls. As clear as his work description, Gyllenhaal wanted to add more layers to it.
“The character was written one way, but I could see the essence of something else in it. In the first draft, it was a character that was much more kind of strait-laced. He was much more trying to find an answer. The ‘trying to find the answer’ thing was the most interesting part of it.”
As the story is already gripped with mysteries, with the father (played by Hugh Jackman) already wanting to go full-vigilante to find his daughter and her friend, Gyllenhaal wanted another puzzle for the audience to solve.
“I don’t think the outward trappings of it were as important. But to me they became important. I wanted the character to be a mystery — but determined — so the audience had two things going on at the same time.”
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In the end, the 43-year-old actor noted that the original script only lacked some powerful elements and was later enhanced as they made the necessary revisions.
“And so, to me, it’s not necessarily like a bad script that became a good movie. But sometimes you just add on to things, and they become totally different from what was written on the page. But still with the same intention.”
Gyllenhaal confessed he is a huge fan of writer Aaron Guzikowski, and it is never his intention to completely turn the narrative in a totally different direction. He only thought adding more layers to his character would make it more fun to play.
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Denis Villeneuve Shares What He Loves About Working With Jake Gyllenhaal
Denis Villeneuve expressed his enthusiasm working with Jake Gyllenhaal, who is also his frequent collaborator. The Canadian director told Motion Pictures:
“He is able to surprise me. What I love about Hollywood is that I get to work with this level of talent. Look at the actors that I get to put in the same frame. It was explosions going off, and all those moments are in the film. That was a huge privilege for me.”
Prisoners received an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography, and it has an 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It is also available to stream via Netflix and Prime Video.
