Jake Gyllenhaal talks about working with director Guy Ritchie and having to “let go” and “come out together” for their upcoming film The covenant.
When hot host Sean Evans asked the Nightcrawler actor during Thursday’s episode if he found it “more intimidating, more challenging or more liberating” to work with a director who “leaves a lot of room to explore,” Gyllenhaal replied, “What I love about my job is that you to work with so many different minds.”
Ritchie directs the action thriller starring Gyllenhaal as US Army Sgt. John Kinley takes on Taliban forces with Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim).
“With Guy, it was unlike anything I’ve ever done,” he recalls. “He said to me, ‘Don’t remember any of your lines,’ and the script was 50 pages. It wasn’t even a fully written script.”
The Prisoners actor continued, “Usually scripts are about 110 pages, and I was like ‘What is this?’ when he first sent it, and then he said, ‘Come to convert, and we’ll work on it that day, and then you’re going to shoot your thing.’ And it was one of the most inspiring, creative experiences I’ve ever had, because it asked for total letting go.”
Later in the interview, when talking about past projects, Gyllenhaal shut down theories that real human and animal feces were used in the 2005 film. Jarhead “as a way of giving you a real authentic reaction in the scene.”
But he said the production did have “fly hunters” on set “to put goddamn flies in it to make it look like real shit.”
He also recalled working on other films where they put sugar on him and “throw flies at your face to make them look like, you know, like you’re playing dead or something, that the flies are flying at you.”
Guy Ritchie’s Covenant will be in cinemas from April 21.
