Jake Gyllenhaal Quotes

Heath [Ledger] was always somebody who I admired.He was way beyond his years as a human, in a way.

We all develop relationships with each other based on our first relationships, and then how we experience them. But inevitably they are echoes of earlier on. In my belief.

I've never had sex with boxers on and it's an odd thing to watch actors do. That's not saying I haven't tried... I just don't recommend it!

I remember Chris Cooper saying to me - I was doing October Sky with him - and he said, "You know, you're just yelling at me." He's like, "You're just yelling. You need to listen." We were in a fight, and you know, oh you'd get so excited as an actor, you're like, "We have a fight, oh, I get to get mad." And he just said, "You need to listen." And I started listening - and then all of a sudden where I was listening was where, I don't know, anger became something else.

Romance is important, but to have a friend you can use as a mirror, who can give you an objective response, that's what's really important.

Dad, I may not be the best, but I come to believe that I got it in me to be somebody in this world. And it's not because I'm so different from you either. It's because I'm the same. I mean, I can be just as hard-headed, and just as tough. I only hope I can be as good a man as you.

I wasn't really quite sure where Heath Ledger came from, and I think that's the feeling most people got when they were around him and why he was so extraordinary.

We are all from different cultures. Heath's [Ledger] Australian, really. I'm from here. Ang's [Lee] from China. But I think Ang gets very close in preproduction and rehearsals. And then he allows his actors - I don't think scared of actors, but I think he's scared of getting in on the scenes he's watching. The space he's watching. So he just totally disconnects from you while you're shooting.

My mom would always say this thing about writing - and I've taken it into account in a lot of things in my life - which is just, "Make it shorter." Figure out what you are truly saying, whittle it down to the essence, then say that.

Theater has given me a different perspective on the way I approach films.

My parents taught me as a kid: do your work. Do it well. Try as hard as you can, whatever it is. It will one day, for the long run, it will make some sort of change somewhere.

I think I'm generally - fear, fear is very still, so in terms of that kind of fear - there's so many different kinds of fear, but fear is something, particularly in movies, that's interesting, because it's created by the film maker, that was created by David Fincher, that's why he's brilliant.

I don't think I've made a mistake. I think I have behaved in ways that I am proud of; I think I've behaved in ways I'm not.

I've decided as an actor the only, the power I have really is in the performance. It's the only real place I get to sort of communicate.

I have a mentor. I have... guides. I have a lot of guides. Not a lot, but people whose opinions I really respect and who I will turn to.

I think, now, younger generations do take that for granted in a lot of ways. I don't think that takes away from the struggle of identity and what that is. But the struggle for identity is everybody's struggle. No matter what it is.

I was trying to figure out where my intellect, if I really have one, where it fit. And so I was searching. I really didn't know who I was or what I really wanted to be, and in that search, like I think you do as an actor, you end up trying to define whatever that is, and I sort of said, "Oh well, searching spiritually in a way is interesting, and Eastern religion seems to be about a search."

I think you hear a lot of people say 'I support the troops' and all of that, but I really feel deeply that I do.

I think I'm not in this work to not look at life as it is. I'm not in it to say, "I want to wear a mask and escape," you know. I want to know what's happening in the world, and I want to have it touch me in a way that I can do something, my little part like that, and have it somehow translate.

When I was young, before school, my father would wake me up and we would go running together. A love of being physical, being active and being outside was something he instilled in me.

I want, overall, to trust what I know is right. There have been many times when I haven't.

When somebody's really good, they're not just thinking about their job.

I don't think I had any idea at the time how to work with someone as masterful as he is. And I don't think at the time I really understood what was happening. I think I was in a space where I was like: there are all these things. I was shooting all these takes with David, and I was just confused, as a person, and as an actor feeling a little too big for my britches and that this thing was happening and then also not having enough skill yet, and technique to know exactly where I was, and know about the character.

It's funny to me that people find other people getting coffee really interesting, or walking their dog in the dog park.

The Jake Gyllenhaal workout planstarts with growing long, long hairgorgeous greasy locks and then washing every day.Wash, shampoo, then condition. Washing works the biceps and then the triceps by conditioning. And vigorously rubbing all of your body with soap really defines the abs and the pectoral muscles. And if you do squats while you're bathing - that's it!

It's amazing how the world has changed because, at that time [2005], a lot of actors didn't want to play a gay role.

I think it's important for every man to find the right woman and every woman to find the right man.

My mum raised us on classic movies and a lot of musical theatre.

I'm a harsh critic, you know? I am.

Do I take care of my body and take conditioning seriously? Yes.

What world am I living in?' Aren't movies made to have something to say? Why make a movie if you don't have something to say? What are you doing it for? Are you doing it because you want to make a lot of money?

I fooled around with Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams got pregnant.

Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.

I think that the idea of boundaries is being challenged everywhere. And I think our fascination with sci-fi is that it is a boundary-less world where we can kind of create the reality that we believe to be as opposed to the reality that is. It is about the beyond and the unknown in a different way than pretty much any type of storytelling is.

I was brought up, and my sister too, with two people who were always saying, "What you do is really nowhere near as important as the things that are going on in the world, and if your work needs to reflect that, or you want it to, then you need to strive for a certain type of excellence."

I think my family love each other so much and expect so much from each other, and I think we expect a type of honesty in the work that we all do.

I like that when you create you really do create with a very small group of people, and in that space, before it goes out to all these people, that's what I love.

I love storytelling, you know, beyond anything. I love a great story beyond a great performance. Storytelling is about what we all do together and how we collaborate together. A performance can be a collaboration in ways, but oftentimes it's one individual thing.

They're the darkest people I know, comedians.

When I was younger, I did work with coach. I went to this place called Actors Space in the Valley. I was pretty young, and we were doing acting and improvisation. But no, no I didn't go to RADA, I didn't do that. But I do now work with an acting coach, primarily for the initial intellectual connection to the material.

What made me most courageous was that I realized I had to try to let go of that stereotype I had in my mind, that bit of homophobia, and try for a second to be vulnerable and sensitive. It was f**kin' hard, man. I succeeded only for milliseconds.

I know exactly what that movie's [Brokeback mountain] about. I can't define it; it doesn't tie up in a perfect bow. But it's about adolescence. It's about what it feels like - this isn't meant as a criticism, but like things I didn't relate to, which were high school movies. Where I'd watch it and I'd be like, "Well, am I like the kid that nobody likes? Or am I like the person who everybody [likes]?" I couldn't [tell]. I was like quantifying, putting me in a box. "This is my personality at that age" and "I'm this kind of person" just felt like bullshit to me.

Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, 'exhaust every possibility.' Once you get to a certain place, it's like you just deliver everything you've got. Don't have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again.

There are a lot of different things that are spinning and connecting when your family sees what you do.

I don't want to be lofty when I say this, but I don't know what a success is any more. I know how we define it, but that was a moment where I went, "Wait, who am I?" You could feel the business, in particular, kind of go "He's all right, let's go over here." I started to go, "Wait, I know why I love to do this." I think I got off track in why I love to do it.

Hardest emotion? They're all pretty damn hard; I don't know really if there's one specifically, but I do think, I don't know what's happening or what I'm feeling when I'm actually listening.

As Uta Hagen would say, there's the representational actor and the presentational actor. My sister [Maggie Gyllenhaal] came up to me recently after she saw this movie, Southpaw, the movie I did, and she thought there was this exploration of that type of presentation, and a bit of representation as well, if I could be totally honest, where she was deeply moved.

Most of the things that I learn are from the women in my life.