Jake Gyllenhaal Destroyed His Body For ‘Nightcrawler’
Jake Gyllenhaal clearly went through a huge transformation for his role in Nightcrawler. The trailers for the hugely anticipated film show the actor looking gaunt and skinny instead of physically imposing and bulky, which is how we’re used to seeing him.
The Donnie Darko star has now opened up about what it took to get into shape for his performance as Louis Bloom, the freelance crime journalist who will go to extreme lengths to get a story.
While speaking to Vulture, Gyllenhaal admitted that he lost over 20 pounds in order to play the protagonist, while he also explained that he needed to have stitches applied to his hand after he punched a mirror so hard during a take.
“That’s what allowed me to go and do Lou: I was in a dangerous space, and I did things to my body and my mind, but there was a lot of play to it.”
According to the Daily Mail, the 33-year-old also went on to discuss how packs of “hungry, scavenging” coyotes that he came across in Southern California inspired him to drop the weight for his conniving character.
After being probed about how skinny he became for Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal explained to the talk-show host how the city of Los Angeles helped to inspire his character.
“Yeah I lost 25 or 30 pounds. Why not, you know? Because the character, I felt like was kind of like a coyote. He’s in Southern California and there’s a lot of coyotes all over the place and I just thought of him like that and I talked to the director … there’s a big part of the movie that is Los Angeles, ya know? It’s a huge character in the film. And I just thought of him as this hungry scavenging kind of animal and I just thought he needed to look like that.”
Gyllenhaal’s transformation appears to have paid off hugely, too. Nightcrawler has so far been met with positive reviews ahead of its release on October 31, 2014. Gyllenhaal himself has been widely praised for his menacingly mesmeric portrayal that perfectly allows the film’s darkly comedic moments and intense dramatic scenes to flourish.
You can check out the latest clip for Nightcrawler below.
#NightcrawlerMovie opens everywhere THIS FRIDAY — SEE IT FIRST TOMORROW! http://t.co/fgJRgZNRUV TICKETS: http://t.co/0nyYfI7X2a
— Nightcrawler (@SeeNIGHTCRAWLER) October 29, 2014
What do you think of Jake Gyllenhaal’s look in Nightcrawler? Are you excited for Dan Gilroy’s dark comedy?
