Ryan Reynolds helps Jake Gyllenhaal lighten up in space thriller Life
AFTER years of making deeply disturbing films, this is how Jake Gyllenhaal learned how to stop worrying and have fun — with a little help from Ryan Reynolds.
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TAKE a good look at Jake Gyllenhaal’s movie output over the past five years: Source Code. End Of Watch. Prisoners. Nightcrawler. Southpaw. Everest. Demolition. Nocturnal Animals.
For all the great things these challenging, emotionally/physically devastating films offered, one ingredient was largely missing: Fun.
It was only after some prodding from friends and family that Gyllenhaal finally decided to do a film that would let him lighten up.
Sci-fi adventure Life — which sends him up to the International Space Station with Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, Brit Ariyon Bakare and Russian Olga Dihovichnaya — is, says Gyllenhaal, “that film”.
“It’s one of those things, where I had to be reminded,” the 36-year-old admits. “Whenever I make a choice about a project, somehow I’ve always had this belief that unless there is some sort of internal conflict, it’s not worth it.
“The idea of having fun was a surprise to me — and almost something I passed up. Until I was reminded by a number of people in my life who were like, ‘It’s time. It’s time to have a little fun’,” he recalls, laughing. “And I was like, ‘I think maybe you’re right!’
“I’d be a fool to not have been a part of it. I haven’t laughed so much on a movie ever. And I made a really good friend in Ryan and in Daniel (Espinosa, director) — two really good men that I adore.
“I got a lot of good things out of this one.”
Don’t be mistaken. Life is a tension-packed thriller about the crew aboard the ISS whose excitement at finding the first evidence of life on Mars turns to terror when this rapidly evolving organism threatens their lives. (“Thankfully it’s an hour and 36 minutes, so it’s not too much time spent in tension,” Gyllenhaal assures.)
But pre-terror, there’s great banter between the crew. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of fun that was happening off-camera.
“From the moment we started working, it was hard to get us to stop laughing,” says Gyllenhaal. “I remember on the first day, it was a really serious scene — where (Bakare’s) hand gets crushed and he’s flailing around. Right before it happened, Ryan turns around and goes: ‘We’re all gonna die.’
“His sense of humour, which is obviously on display in Deadpool ... I just couldn’t stop laughing. And it was like that the whole time. I mean, it was joke after joke, desperately trying to fit in the actual scene between all of us cracking up.”
Emulating zero gravity for the entire shoot, which involved a lot of hanging from the rafters on wires, was “inhuman,” Gyllenhall says. He reckons he never stopped bumping into things and that there was a lot of chafing.
Reynolds jokes that by the end of filming he was being suspended “from my good testicle — they wrecked my other one”.
Yet the actors still wound up with an inflated idea of what they were capable of.
“There’s a little bit of hubris that comes into effect. It may just be the actor’s psyche generally,” Gyllenhaal laughs, “but after enough hours flying around, you really start to believe you can fly.”
Chafing aside, the constant zero gravity is a big part of Life’s destabilising appeal.
“The movie has this way of not letting you know which way is up and which way is down visually, so you’re never quite sure where you are,” Gyllenhaal agrees. “That makes it even more terrifying, but also really fun.”
While Reynolds’ character is the engineer/space-walk specialist and Ferguson’s the disease control expert, Gyllenhaal plays the ship’s doctor, David Jordan.
The actor took some inspiration for the part from his maternal grandfather, Samuel, a surgeon who died three years ago.
“I thought of him often while I was making this movie. Though it’s not a full homage, there’s a piece of him in there. As brilliant as he was, I don’t ever know if he considered my profession a true one,” Gyllenhaal chuckles. “But I know that he is proud of me, regardless.”
As the astronaut who’s been aboard the ISS longest, it would seem the Doc is prime candidate to succumb to a bit of space madness when the Martian life form gets loose.
With a little laugh and a big dash of self-awareness, Gyllenhaal responds in the affirmative: “I mean, why cast me if the character doesn’t succumb to a little space madness?”
He liked toying with the psychological aspects of the story and says the Doc has his reasons for staying in space: “He doesn’t really believe in what’s happening on Earth.”
Given what’s happening on Gyllenhaal’s patch of Earth right now — i.e.: Trumpageddon — is this American just about ready to escape into space for real?
“No, no, no, now’s the time to get your feet on the ground,” he says. “Regardless of whether you believed in the (Hillary Clinton) slogan ‘Stronger Together’, believe in that now. I believe that we all choose our leaders — whether we’re for or against. So, though I strongly disagree with a lot of the choices being made by the current administration, I also believe that I am responsible for that.
Me and my bro #WomensMarchOnWashington pic.twitter.com/4y1uJ9p1YR
— Maggie Gyllenhaal (@mgyllenhaal) January 21, 2017
“So I want to have my feet on the ground. It’s the only choice we can all make. We’re all complicit. And if you’re complacent, that’s the biggest mistake.”
Gyllenhaal is taking heart from statistics showing that people are taking more interest in politics than ever before.
“If that’s out of fear, then it’s out of fear,” he says. “But whatever it’s out of, that’s fantastic. There’s an upside, somewhere.”
Gyllenhaal is currently halfway through a 10-week Broadway run of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday In the Park With George. It’s been a critical and box office smash, with headlines expressing amazement at Gyllenhaal’s singing voice.
He credits composer Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home) with making it happen.
“She came to me: ‘I hear you can sing, let’s do this’. I don’t know if I would have done it on my own.”
He laughs when asked if he’s got any other heretofore unknown skills.
“I can’t tell you that! I grew up singing; I grew up with my mother taking my sister and I to musical theatre. So it’s a world I love. I just haven’t ... I dunno. I just happened to get lucky making movies and never had an opportunity, or maybe the confidence, to step out and do what I really love the most.”
After throwing caution to the wind on Broadway and on Life, might Gyllenhaal continue to choose fun from here on in?
“I think I have fun anyway; that’s the thing people find odd about me,” he laughs. “I have fun even when I’m in movies that people are somewhat disturbed by ... But yeah, if the opportunity arises and it’s with people who are as open, as loving and as creative as the people involved in Life, then I’m always in.”
LIFE OPENS TODAY
Originally published as Ryan Reynolds helps Jake Gyllenhaal lighten up in space thriller Life
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