Jake Gyllenhaal Talks 'The Day After Tomorrow'

[Monday, May 24th, 2004]
Jake GyllenhaalJake Gyllenhaal, who stars in the upcoming movie The Day After Tomorrow, says he had to adapt to his first big-budget action Hollywood movie. "Yeah, you should have seen me, I was 'independent-ing' it," he told Sci-Fi Wire. "I was just like not hitting my marks and just being in the moment and doing whatever I needed to do. And they're like, 'There are 800 extras behind you, dude! You got to, like, get down here.' And [director] Roland [Emmerich is] like, 'And there's like an enormous wave that I'm figuring out, so you need to be in the blue screen and not on the other [side].'"

"The most challenging for me was making scenes that I think have very little subtext have some reality to them," he added. "You know, you have to get so much information in such a short period of time that ... making something seem like you're actually saying it, and it's not some plot device, ... was really hard for me. ... Sitting in a tank with 700 extras going to the bathroom in it, and then, you know, ... reusing that water to then shoot another scene where you're drowning in water is disgusting. And it's hard. But it's not as hard as trying to make, like, 'He will come' work. That's really hard."

Gyllenhaal says Dennis Quaid, who stars as his father in the movie, gave him some advice. "I was really gung ho at the beginning of the movie, like ... trying to make the relationship really poignant, you know? I remember Dennis kind of sitting me down one day and being like, 'You got to chill out. It's an action movie.'"

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