I grew up on movie sets, so it was something I just found familiar. When I was growing up also, in high school, I would audition for things and my parents let me audition for things - with the thought that I wouldn't get them. And then I would get them... sometimes, and it would surprise them.
Jake GyllenhaalHeath [Ledger] would walk up to a horse and could like silence the horse. Just literally he'd be like, 'Shh. Shh.' And then he'd get on the horse. I'd be like, 'I'm going to get on you.' They'd be like, 'F - off!' I didn't really have that style.
Jake GyllenhaalI could draw ideas. I remember writing a paper for a seminar class. I remember writing a paper about - and this is going to sound really sort of pretentious, but that's where my mind was at the time - how acting and the performing artist can really be like a Bodhisattva, how they can communicate ultimately an idea in a way that can move and shift things. And that was wonderful. I didn't know many classes where I could try and relate the thing that I really loved and wanted to do into an intellectual idea, and that happened to be one of them.
Jake Gyllenhaal