Jake Gyllenhaal Joins Bear Grylls in ‘Man vs. Wild’ Premiere

On Monday, July 11th, Donnie Darko star Jake Gyllenhaal teamed up with British extreme explorer Bear Grylls for a trek through the glaciers of Iceland in a new episode of Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild.

In the episode, which marked the premiere of the popular show’s sixth season, Grylls and Gyllenhaal travel for two-days through snow-covered mountains and tackle horizontal hail storms, blizzards, and 90 mph winds.

The weather conditions during the time the episode was filmed were so dangerous in fact, that local airports were forced to cancel all flight paths and close down.

“We did have some crazy conditions — some of the worst weather I’ve seen for years,” Grylls told the LA Times in a recent interview. “The wind was so strong that they literally had a jumbo jet blown sideways at the airport. And there we were, 5,000 feet up on a mountain trying to get our backsides out of there in one piece. Jake was saying, ‘Where’s the relaxing chilling out in the wild?'”

In addition to enduring the crazy weather, Gyllenhaal was forced to eat a breakfast of worms, cross an icy river, and confront his fear of heights – he shimmied across a 150 foot deep ravine on a single rope.

Following the filming of the episode, Bear praised the 30-year-old actor, describing his performance in the wild as “incredible.”

“You’ve gotta admire somebody when they step out of their comfort zone and put their life in somebody else’s hands. I was very clear with him and said, ‘Come on your own and trust me.’ He did incredible. What I like about the wild is when you’re squeezed, you see what people are made of.”

Watch Gyllenhaal face his fear of heights in the 2-minute Men vs. Wild clip below:

via LA Times