I 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 GyllenhaalI have a profound respect for cinematographers. That is my secret sauce. Like they are everything to me.
Jake GyllenhaalI was listening to this Adele song, where she's like, "When we were young..." I was like, "You're 27. Are you kidding me?
Jake GyllenhaalMy 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.
Jake GyllenhaalBeing the youngest, I constantly have that insecurity of being the youngest, which ultimately is probably my drive. in a lot of ways. In terms of as an artist, the way we could communicate as a family very clearly was through movies and through acting, and when things became complicated with all of our own personalities, that's where we are most clear. I think that's also where we are most brutal with each other as well.
Jake GyllenhaalI think it's more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn't really work in a way where there's a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it's a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you're following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart.
Jake Gyllenhaal