Jake Gyllenhaal on getting ‘clocked in the face’ by UFC champ Conor McGregor
Jake Gyllenhaal opens up on the challenges of getting shredded for Road House and what really happened when he punched co-star – and champion fighter –Conor McGregor.
New Movies
Don't miss out on the headlines from New Movies. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Jake Gyllenhaal knew all too well the destructive power that Conor McGregor could unleash as a champion UFC fighter.
What he didn’t know was exactly how those ferocious mixed martial arts skills would translate to the art of fake fighting on a movie set – and he was more than a little nervous to find out.
“To teach a real fighter how to not fight is a process and to be the guinea pig in that process is definitely something,” Gyllenhaal says with a laugh over Zoom call from London. “So there were constant reminders to remember that he didn’t actually have to hit me. I’d be like ‘you don’t have to …’ and he’d always be ‘oh yeah, yeah, yeah’. So it was a learning process for all of us, but we had great fun.”
The controversial, trash-talking Irishman makes his acting debut as a flamboyantly thuggish hired goon in Gyllenhaal’s remake of the much-loved 1989 action movie Road House and the pair have some of the most brutal and elaborately choreographed fight scenes ever caught on film. Inevitably, Gyllenhaal copped a few stray blows from the volatile acting novice, but says that he wore them like a badge of honour and even returned the favour, if only to negligible effect.
“Oftentimes people want to know if he hit me and he did by mistake a couple times,” says Gyllenhaal, “but I did to him too. I mean, it really had no effect on him. It was quite a shock and definitely something in my career that I will always hold with me, that I was actually hit in the face by Mr McGregor. He was really apologetic though.”
McGregor, who has at times has been the world’s highest paid athlete, hasn’t fought professionally since breaking his tibia during his third bout against American Dustin Poirier in January 2021.
As is the case for most of his 16-year fighting career, McGregor has never been far from the headlines and has been dogged by accusations of dust-ups, driving offences, sexual assault and robbery. But Gyllenhaal says that the McGregor he squared up against during the 2022 filming of Road House in the Dominican Republic was eager to learn and happy to be schooled.
“I was very struck by, before we began, he said that he was a white belt in making movies and acting and he was there to learn and I think that’s part of the martial arts mentality,” Gyllenhaal says.
“At the highest level and the best level it feels like there’s a humility in learning and he brought that to the process. Fighting with him was slightly terrifying and, I think, rightfully so.”
Gyllenhaal has a special connection to the 1989 original Road House, which starred Patrick Swayze as Dalton, a legendary bouncer who is hired to turn around the fortunes of a rundown, violence-plagued bar and ends up at odds with the local crime boss. The Dirty Dancing star, who died of cancer in 2009, also appeared in Gyllenhaal’s breakout 1999 drama Donnie Darko and left a lasting impression on the then young, up-and-coming actor.
To Gyllenhaal, who jokes that he has seen Point Break “more than 500 times”, and was taken to see Dirty Dancing by his older sister Maggie, Swayze and his wife Lisa personified how to act collaboratively and supportively both on and off set.
“I met Patrick when we were making Donnie Darko and he was so kind to me throughout that,” he says. “In the scenes we did, our characters at the time were pitted against each other, but he was just so funny and loving and then after the movie … he and his wife Lisa were always so supportive of me.
“Just generous, open-hearted people, and I think real artists in that way. I think part of his being such a beautiful dancer and Lisa too, they’re used to being part of a troupe and being part of a community, and so they always made everyone feel that way.”
Gyllenhaal says that while he wanted to honour Swayze by taking the role of Dalton in the Road House remake, “it didn’t feel like a great responsibility because we also both come from a space in the theatre where you play other parts and many actors play the same part”.
While debate is ongoing as to whether the original, which features a handful of scenes that definitely would not fly in 2024, was a good movie, a bad movie, or a so-bad-it’s good movie, Gyllenhaal settles on “cult classic”.
“I think it’s loved, which is most important,” he says. “I don’t know if there’s a barometer for a good, bad or whatever, I mean it’s all relative in the end, but I think it’s so entertaining and he’s so deeply charismatic. It’s Patrick Swayze for crying out loud, so it’s pretty fantastic. But also yeah, there’s moments in that movie that are … a little strange but also just such a cult classic.”
Gyllenhaal’s Dalton in the new version is a former UFC fighter with a dark past and a reputation so fearsome that sometimes all it takes is for him to reveal his face for his opponents to vacate the arena. He says that while likes to stay in shape just for his day to day life, he trained solidly for months to get himself in the best – and most shredded – shape he has been in since his 2015 boxing drama, Southpaw. He notes a little ruefully that getting into peak physical condition a decade ago as opposed to now was a very different experience, as were the fight scenes in front of the camera.
“In my 30s I did it on my own and in my 40s, it took a village,” he says. “In order to not sustain injuries, particularly long-term injuries in fighting like that and constantly doing take after take. We weren’t fighting in a ring like we did in Southpaw, we were fighting all over the place – outside, in a bar, there are edges of things and glass and tons of other people, so many more opportunities for injury.
“So (we were) just trying to make sure that there was flexibility, mobility and also strength, we worked really hard. I always take care of myself, I feel like that’s very important, but this was a whole other level. It was trying to train and focus like an athlete and constantly trying to take care of myself as well as getting the strength needed aesthetically that you see on the screen.”
To film Road House scenes in which Dalton is having flashbacks to his professional fighting career, the cast and crew visited the fabled Octagon in Las Vegas where they were given permission to film between undercard fights at UFC 285. Gyllenhaal says he took the opportunity to enter that arena as a non-fighter seriously and considered it to be “sacred space” in a similar fashion to how he regards the stage as an actor.
Director Doug Liman was told he would have anything between 45 seconds and 7 minutes to get the necessary footage, depending on whether bouts went the full distance, and Gyllenhaal says that the pressure was so intense to make the scenes look authentic that his on-screen opponent, UFC fighter turned stuntman Jay Hieron, wanted the actor to hit him for real.
Even though he wasn’t in the scene, McGregor insisted on being there on the day and his presence helped fire up the audience of real UFC fans to cheer on the pretenders in the Octagon.
“Jay turned to me just before we went out and said ‘it’s fine, you can just actually hit me, let’s just go, just actually hit me’ and I was like ‘well …’ but we got pretty close. The encouragement from the fans makes you go hard and it was incredible. They kind of knew who was the good and bad in the story and would cheer when I threw a punch and would boo when Jay threw one. It was great.”
With credits ranging from dramas such as Brokeback Mountain and Zodiac to action roles in Prince of Persia and Spider-Man: Far From Home – not to mention stints in plays and musicals on Broadway and the West End – Gyllenhaal has a resume as varied as any A-lister in Hollywood. Next year he will return to the New York stage to play Iago opposite Denzel Washington’s Othello in the revered Shakespeare play and he says it’s yet another pinch-me moment in a career that has enabled him to work with people he has idolised from afar.
“I remember I was doing Southpaw and I was sitting next to Marshall Mathers, who I was a fan of since I was really young, and couldn’t believe I was sitting next to him,” Gyllenhaal recalls. “And the same thing when I was fake fighting with Conor and to think about working with Mr Washington, who I have long been a massive admirer of and I’m a massive fan.
“It’s these moments that I am beyond grateful, but also really excited. To be able to try to bring my game into this space, I would say it’s not only Denzel but also Mr Shakespeare, so that’s a whole other GOAT. So, all of it is an honour.”
Road House is now streaming on Prime Video.
Aussie stars’ next big project revealed
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi will soon be back on the big screen, this time portraying one of literature’s greatest tormented love stories.
Transformation to animated character still fascinates ScarJo
One of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood, Scarlett Johansson has voiced numerous big budget Hollywood animations, now including Transformers One.