Jake Gyllenhaal discussed how being legally blind has helped him grow as an actor as he posed for a smoldering new shoot this week
The star, 43, who most recently played Elwood Dalton in the Amazon remake of the 1989 movie, Road House looked typically handsome in a shoot with THR – which saw the actor open up about using his visual impairment to hone his craft.
Gyllenhaal has 20/1250 vision and has been wearing intensive corrective lenses since he was six years old. The star was born with a lazy eye which naturally resolved.
He said of being legally blind: ‘I like to think it’s advantageous. I’ve never known anything else. When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself.’
In 2015 boxing movie Southpaw, he removed his contacts for a scene in which police told his character Billy “The Great” Hope his wife has died – which he says forced himself to ‘listen more closely.’
Jake Gyllenhaal smoldered in a hunky new shoot this week as the Oscar-nominated actor revealed he is now actively seeking new projects to ‘freak himself out’
The star, 43, most recently played Elwood Dalton in the Amazon remake of the 1989 movie, Road House
The star – who landed an Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain in 2006 – said he is now seeking out projects that put him out of his comfort zone and ‘freak me out a bit.
‘The feeling I want to have is, can I do it? That it’s going to ask of me things that I don’t know about myself yet.’
He also revealed he had contracted a painful staph infection in his hand after pressing down on a bunch of broken glass during shooting of a fight scene for Road House.
He added: ‘There are movies I’ve made that people have said to me, “Man, intense. That was great. It was tough”. And there have been many different times where I’m like, “Wait, what’s it like to make a movie and be like, “That was just fun?’ Road House was definitely that.”
In January Road House director Doug Liman vowed to boycott the premiere over its planned streaming-only release – but later went back on his decision.
Gyllenhaal said he was fully aware of the decision to stream the acclaimed film on Amazon only and said he asked if the epic could serve as an ‘example as something that can reach an audience and still make its way to the zeitgeist?’
The film is a remake of the cult classic starring Patrick Swayze as New York bar bouncer James Dalton, who winds up working at a small-town nightclub in Missouri.
As he tries to keep his gruesome past shrouded in mystery, he finds himself confronted with the corrupt, violent underbelly of his new stomping grounds.
He said of being legally blind: ‘I like to think it’s advantageous. I’ve never known anything else. When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself’
Gyllenhaal has 20/1250 vision and has been wearing intensive corrective lenses since he was six years old. The star was born with a lazy eye which naturally resolved (pictured as a child)
In 2015 boxing movie Southpaw, he removed his contacts for a scene in which police told his character Billy “The Great” Hope his wife (played by Rachel McAdams) has died – which he says forced himself to ‘listen more closely’
The star looked dashing as he posed for the shoot
The star – who landed an Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain in 2006 – said he is now seeking out projects that put him out of his comfort zone and ‘freak me out a bit
The actor looked dapper as he posed up a storm for the shoot
Jake playfully ate some chips as he posed for the shoot
The actor looked handsome as ever for the shoot
He also revealed he had contracted a painful staph infection in his hand after pressing down on a bunch of broken glass during shooting of a fight scene for Road House – seen with Conor McGregor as Knox
The star has been dating French model Jeanne Cadieu, 28, since 2018 and opened up about his plans for marriage and children (pictured March)
MMA fighter Conor McGregor played Knox in the film – with the streamer revealing the movie was their ‘most watched produced film debut ever on a worldwide basis’ – attracting 50million viewers over the first two weekends of the film airing.
The star has been dating French model Jeanne Cadieu, 28, since 2018 and opened up about his plans for marriage and children.
He said: ‘I’m not going to give you timing. I think we all get into that space of work, work, work, and for a long time my career took precedence, but I’m at a point in my life where I realize that family really is the only thing that matters to me.’
