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In today’s modern movie age, there are perhaps only a handful of actors that can play double-duty in commanding both big event Blockbuster films as well as more artistically-driven specialty films. Among those select few is Jake Gyllenhaal, whose incredibly varied and consistently high-performing career always seems to circle back to his involvement in these slightly twisted, left-of-center specialty films, as a man with a darkness that just can’t seem to escape him. So it makes sense to see That Gyllenhaal here, taking the night-shift in this new indie thriller, and dropping a reported twenty pounds to play gaunt-faced Louis Bloom, (perhaps a distant relative of Norman Bates in terms of eerie kookiness) who finds himself gravitating to the frenzied world of freelance crime scene filming. The performance is delicious and unnerving, and among one of his most enjoyable and weirdly fun roles (Read Nic’s glowing review here); the film is Nightcrawler, an L.A.-set hypnotic ride-along (that might be this year’s best midnight movie), and the directorial debut from The Bourne Legacy reboot penner Dan Gilroy. At a recent press day, Jake Gyllenhaal spoke of the movie, and about the modern age of journalism (which makes for interesting conversation when expressing his reservations about its current state to a room full of journalists), his infamous weight loss, and his love for his hometown, L.A. (and he’s not quoting Randy Newman). We begin:

 

YOUR LAST STRING OF FILMS (PRISONERS, ENEMY) AND NOW, NIGHTCRAWLER, ARE EACH SO CONCEPTUALLY AND ARTISTICALLY INTERESTING FROM A DIRECTOR’S POINT OF VIEW. DO YOU HAVE ANY AMBITIONS TO BE A DIRECTOR AT SOME POINT?

My father’s a director and my mother’s a director too now, actually. I know from my experience in watching people do it, and I’ve had the opportunity to work with people who are really good at it, that it would be presumptuous of me to say that. I would like to try my hand at it at some point, yeah.

 

WHEN IT CAME TO PIECING TOGETHER LOUIS, DID YOU DO SOME RESEARCH IN THE WAY MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS TALK?

The hand gesturing, that was all… I don’t know if you’ve met Dan Gilroy, but Dan and I talked a lot about how there’s somebody I base the character on who used his hands a lot, but Dan is also like…[Makes hands gestures].

But no, I didn’t study anybody who did self-help; the words just guided me there. I didn’t veer off on word or one period, or any commas throughout the whole thing. That way guided me to be very specific.

 

WHAT ABOUT THE WAY YOU MESSED WITH YOUR HAIR? WHAT THAT SOMETHING YOU READ IN THE SCRIPT?

I just thought, what if when Lou was headed into filming his hair gets in his way?, ‘cause my hair was pretty long at the time, and there’s actually a moment in the movie where my hair is all in my face and I’m filming- there was a lot of inspiration coming at me from all over the place.

I said to Dan, “Wouldn’t it be great if I was talking to Rick in the car, giving him speeches, and as I’m talking- like we all do who have driven cars in Los Angeles- drive with my knee while putting my hair up. There was something about it that was like a ninja, he thought he was a ninja. Like when he stole that bike, he was a f*cking ninja.

There’s nothing I love more than another actor who is gonna side-swipe me. It’s so much fun.

YOUR CHARACTER IS LIKE NORMAN BATES-MEETS-TV NEWS- DID YOU SEE SOME SOCIOPATH IN HIM?

My belief in using that word is that it takes the owns off of us in the creation of Lou. I feel like he is our creation, without our desperation for information of all sorts in a world where unimportant information is now important and important info is unimportant, people like Lou can thrive. He is the product of a generation where jobs are scarce and they are transforming the idea of what someone does. Like the other day, someone said ‘I don’t write articles, I post.’ Whole generations of people are coming into the world thinking, “What is a job?”

Lou is a walking metaphor. That’s how I look at him. He is enabled by (Station News Director) Nina (Rene Russo), Nina is enabled by the guys at the station, and they are enabled by us. There is a world, ideally, where someone like Lou wouldn’t end up being the head of a huge major network, but I feel like the world we live in now, he probably would.

 

HOW DO YOU FIND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JOURNALISM AND ‘CELEBRITY CULTURE’ ENTERTAINMENT?

Celebrity culture is very different between life and death, and what Lou does is find the difference between life and death. When you’re following somebody who’s just living their life, it’s not comparable [to journalism].

 

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WORKING WITH RENE RUSSO, AS A PERSON AND AN ACTOR?

In the restaurant scene, Dan, her husband, gave her very little to survive with. I would say that Lou is given a figurative 50-caliber machine gun in that scene with his words and she is given a spoon. I walked into that scene expecting to just, win. And eventually he does win that scene, but Rene came in and made it a struggle for me in that, even with close to nothing to defend with, she was a fierce competitor. The choices that she was making moment to moment, like when she touched my leg, that was a choice she was doing underneath the table that no one will see. She was just trying to mess with me.

There’s nothing I love more than another actor who is gonna side-swipe me. It’s so much fun.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT YOUR LOOK?

[Laughs]. Well I have an extraordinary makeup artist who worked with me on the movie Prisoners. We had extraordinary department heads on this movie, from Robert Elswit, who shot our movie, all the way to our production head. It was nuts.

One of the biggest things is that Lou only sweats once in the movie, and that was a very particular thing that we talked about often. The only time he sweats is out of excitement when he’s going through that house, because he’s f*cking psyched! Every other exchange is a cool-confidence to him.

So those types of things, in terms of my face, the choices we made, losing weight, that was just months of getting into it. As we were shooting I would run to set, and at a certain point I was running through Griffith Park all the time- 8 to 15 miles a day- picturing myself as a coyote with all the coyotes. I wasn’t really aware of [my physical transformation] until a few months ago when we were going through all the cuts.

 

WHEN THE FILM COMES OUT, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO MAKE AN INDICTMENT TO THE NEWS BUSINESS AND HOW WE COVER STORIES AND PUT OUT INFORMATION. ARE YOU COMFORTABLE BEING PUT IN THAT POSITION?

My form of communication is through the movies I make. I think this movie is incredibility fun to watch and entertaining, as well as I feel like some kind of commentary. When you can get the two in one movie, those are the types of movies I wanna make. I don’t think any story is good unless there’s some kind of commentary somewhere. Dan Gilroy has a point of view, and I think he’s created this character to shine light on the fact that I don’t think a character like Lou could exist unless we created him.

I have been more moved by the media emotionally, my heart has swelled as a result of stories I’ve read, and I’ve been disgusted at the same time from other stories I’ve read. I think that is what’s beautiful about the job you all do.

 

IN THE MOVIE, L.A. IS LIKE ITS OWN CHARACTER, AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL. HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE L.A., AND HOW DID THAT PLAY INTO YOUR CHARACTER?

L.A. is where I was born and raised. I live in New York now, and every time I fly in, I love L.A., and I don’t want to quote Randy Newman.

[Laughter]

The movie would not have been able to be made anywhere else. This is a Los Angeles movie. Every time I talk to anybody who has seen the movie and I say, ‘I base this character off of a coyote,’ they all go, ‘Ohhh!’ Like, who hasn’t been eye-f*cked by a coyote? They are not intimated by you at all! In fact, they are looking for the most vulnerable aspect of you. They’re a beautiful animal, I’ve grown to love them cause I’ve done so much research and felt like I was one of them for so long playing this character.

Nightcrawler is in theaters this Friday.