Jake Gyllenhaal began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers, followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman and Homegrown.
62 Facts About Jake Gyllenhaal
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Jake Gyllenhaal starred in the 2004 science fiction disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.
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Jake Gyllenhaal played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, for which Gyllenhaal won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has since starred in Wildlife, Velvet Buzzsaw, The Guilty, and Ambulance.
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Jake Gyllenhaal was born in Los Angeles, California to film producer and screenwriter Naomi Foner and film director Stephen Jake Gyllenhaal.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is of Swedish and English descent and is a descendant of the Swedish noble Jake Gyllenhaal family.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his great-great-grandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's mother is Jewish, and was born in New York City to an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Russia and Poland.
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On his 13th birthday, Jake Gyllenhaal performed a "Bar Mitzvah-like act, without the typical trappings", volunteering at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to give him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle.
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Jake Gyllenhaal made his acting debut as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy City Slickers.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's parents did not allow him to appear in The Mighty Ducks because it would have required him to leave home for two months.
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Jake Gyllenhaal was allowed to appear in his father's films several times.
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Jake Gyllenhaal appeared in the 1993's A Dangerous Woman, in "Bop Gun", a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street; and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself, and he thus worked as a lifeguard and as a busboy at a restaurant operated by a family friend.
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Jake Gyllenhaal dropped out after two years to concentrate on acting but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree.
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Donnie Darko, in which Jake Gyllenhaal played his second lead role on film, was not a box office success on its initial 2001 release but eventually became a cult favorite.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was described by one critic as "silly, cliched and straight to video".
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Jake Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he starred in Lovely and Amazing with Catherine Keener.
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Jake Gyllenhaal later starred in the Touchstone Pictures romantic comedy Bubble Boy, which was loosely based on the story of David Vetter.
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Jake Gyllenhaal was almost cast as Spider-Man for 2004's Spider-Man 2, due to director Sam Raimi's concerns about original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's health.
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Jake Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in the science fiction blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, co-starring Dennis Quaid as his father.
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In 2005, Jake Gyllenhaal was cast in the drama Proof, with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, where he played a graduate student in mathematics who tries to convince Paltrow's character to publish a revolutionary proof to a problem puzzling the mathematicians' community.
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Jake Gyllenhaal starred in Sam Mendes' Jarhead, where Gyllenhaal played a violent US Marine during the first Gulf War.
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The film garnered a favorable response; Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post praises Jake Gyllenhaal's performance, writing, "He makes us see his character's intelligence", adding "he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others".
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The film won four Golden Globes, and four British Academy Film Awards, in which Jake Gyllenhaal won for Best Supporting Actor.
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Shortly after the 2006 Academy Awards, Jake Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy in recognition of his acting career.
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Jake Gyllenhaal expressed mixed feelings about the experience of being directed by Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain but generally had more praise than criticism for his directorial style.
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At the Directors Guild of America Awards on January 28,2006, Jake Gyllenhaal praised Lee for "his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him".
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Jake Gyllenhaal narrated the 2005 short animated film The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, based on Mordicai Gerstein's book of the same name about Philippe Petit's famous stunt.
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Later, Jake Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac, based on the Zodiac killer.
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Jake Gyllenhaal played Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist.
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In preparation for his role, Jake Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior.
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Jake Gyllenhaal next starred opposite Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Reese Witherspoon in 2007's Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the US policy of extraordinary rendition.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has claimed that Maguire's performance in the film influenced his acting throughout his career.
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Jake Gyllenhaal starred alongside Michael Pena in David Ayer's action thriller End of Watch, about two Los Angeles street cops.
36.
The film, for which Jake Gyllenhaal was an executive producer, was released in September 2012 and received positive reviews, with Roger Ebert deeming it "one of the best police movies in recent years, a virtuoso fusion of performances and often startling action" and Salons Andrew O'Hehir stating that the film was "at least the best cop movie since James Gray's We Own the Night, and very likely since Antoine Fuqua's memorable Training Day ".
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Jake Gyllenhaal served as a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival that was held in February 2012.
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Also in 2012, Jake Gyllenhaal made his Off-Broadway debut in Nick Payne's play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre.
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However, a new production of Burn This took place in 2019 with Adam Driver appearing, with Jake Gyllenhaal's production having reportedly been abandoned.
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In 2017, Jake Gyllenhaal starred as astronaut David Jordan in the science fiction horror film Life; Slant Magazines Eric Henderson stated that Jake Gyllenhaal was "dead behind the eyes from his first scene".
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Jake Gyllenhaal had a supporting role in the action-adventure film Okja and starred in the drama Stronger, based on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman.
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Jake Gyllenhaal had a role in the western drama The Sisters Brothers.
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Jake Gyllenhaal reunited with Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy in the thriller film Velvet Buzzsaw, in which he plays art critic Mort Vandewalt.
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Varietys Peter Debrudge opined that Jake Gyllenhaal was "relishing another of those cartoonishly camp performances".
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Jake Gyllenhaal garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance.
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Jake Gyllenhaal lent his voice for the animation Spirit Untamed.
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Jake Gyllenhaal voiced a farmer in the Disney animation Strange World.
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Jake Gyllenhaal was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006.
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Jake Gyllenhaal was listed in People's "Hottest Bachelors of 2006".
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Jake Gyllenhaal has both godparents and what he describes as "celebrity godparents".
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Jake Gyllenhaal began dating actress Kirsten Dunst in 2002 after his sister Maggie, who starred with Dunst in Mona Lisa Smile, introduced them; they eventually broke up in 2004 on friendly terms.
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Jake Gyllenhaal dated his Rendition co-star Reese Witherspoon from 2007 until 2009.
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Jake Gyllenhaal dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from October 2010 to January 2011, and model Alyssa Miller from July to December 2013.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has been in a relationship with French model Jeanne Cadieu since late 2018.
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Jake Gyllenhaal once filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and, along with his sister, visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in the 2004 presidential election.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's endorsement came in the form of a Facebook post that included a picture of him in a "BETO" shirt and a caption that endorsed Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jacky Rosen in their respective Senate or gubernatorial elections.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has described climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiring figure.
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In 2003, Jake Gyllenhaal participated in an advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Jake Gyllenhaal is the Honorary Chair of the New Eyes for the Needy Advisory Board, and has signed on to help the TV fundraiser Stand Up to Cancer.
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Jake Gyllenhaal is on the board of directors for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and volunteered in California juvenile detention centers with Scott Budnick.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has studied Buddhism, and has said, "I am not a card-carrying Buddhist, but I do try to practice mindfulness" and that it is his goal to meditate every day.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.