JUNE 16TH 2005 

#11. Jake Gyllenhaal, 24
LUMINO MAGAZINE'S 35 COOLEST
Written by ANN FINSTAD   

Is there a list that 24-year-old Jake Gyllenhaal HASN’T been on lately? Everywhere we look, he’s being lauded – mostly for being a hot young bachelor, but his acting skills haven’t gone unnoticed either.

Since first hitting the radar in 1999’s “October Sky,” Gyllenhaal has logged an impressively diverse list of credits: from his breakthrough role in cult-hit “Donnie Darko” to his turn as Jennifer Aniston’s jailbait love interest in “The Good Girl” to a bona-fide action star in last summer’s “The Day After Tomorrow.” (And let’s not forget his rumored near-involvement in Spiderman 2.) In fact, Jake Gyllenhaal is so boyishly charming, most people don’t even remember his early career turn in the ill-conceived “Bubble Boy.”

What makes Gyllenhaal so cool is not just his ability to effortlessly cross genres, or even his unconventional-yet-attractive looks, but his social involvement. He and (equally cool) sister Maggie worked the Rock the Vote circuit this past fall, visiting various colleges in an effort to get young people to register to vote, as well as campaigning for Presidential candidate John Kerry.

Of course, Gyllenhaal’s ability to win over fans will always come back to those edgy acting choices, like his part in the upcoming Ang Lee film “Brokeback Mountain” (where he and Heath Ledger play best friends and unlikely love interests), and as a jaded U.S. Marine in the currently filming adaptation of bestseller “Jarhead.” With roles like that, (and, yes, he still has the “hot” thing) we think those accolades are bound to keep coming.


 - posted by Ally 
- credits: Lumino Magazine
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 JUNE 1ST 2005 

Forward
By Jake Gyllenhaal

What is Donnie Darko about? I have no idea, at least not a conscious one. But somehow I’ve always understood it. The most amazing thing about making this movie, for me, was the fact that no one - including the man from whose mind it emerged - ever had a simple answer to this question. And that, ironically, is the very thing the film is actually about. There is no single answer to any question. Every person’s explanation differs according to how they were brought up, where they were brought up, who brought them up. This seems like a very simple answer to a perplexingly complex movie, but when you think about it, it gets to the very crux of what we all seem to take for granted: our own minds, how they differ, and that we are all entitled to our own interpretation.

The struggle begins when, at a certain age, a kid starts to experience the effects of his childhood and the possibility that his upbringing was flawed. It’s hard to accept the idea that there is no ideal. Nothing is perfect. The hardest part, though, is when he or she begins the search for his or her own idea of what is right. It’s scary to search. You never know what resistance you might meet.

America is a culture that prides itself on supporting this kind of inquiry but, in fact, it often inhibits self-expression. Too often we are encouraged to be passive, not to challenge our leadership, not to inquire too far. And popular culture often reflects this passive relationship. Kids know when it’s Britney Spears’s birthday, but they probably couldn’t tell you the name of America’s Vice-President. Not to diss Britney Spears: I think she’s hot. I bought her last record. And not to diss Dick Cheney either: he’s provided a lot more drama than some of our leading screenwriters. But who’s to blame?

None of this is our fault. We are a product of our culture. But we can’t be afraid to speak our minds.

And it is this that makes Donnie Darko so cool. Richard Kelly used the backdrop of the 80s, a mainstream style of filmmaking (his hero is Spielberg- who rocks, by the way) against itself, to be subversive. To give us something different from what we’re used to. In the words of Donnie himself, ‘to change things’.

Call it cult. Call it genius. Call it what you will, but the fact that Richard has chosen not to spoon-feed his audience a simple conclusion to the film requires his audience to participate in the process of figuring it out with him.

There aren’t a whole lot of people doing this.

When we were working, I would beg and plead with Richard to find one through-line and an understandable conclusion. He never would. Some could argue this was detrimental to the film. And it might be to any other film. And there are those who would say that it was to this one. But I wish those people could spend a day with me sometime. So they could sit at a meal, or walk down the street when a total stranger walks up and starts a philosophical discussion about what exactly Donnie Darko is about. It makes my day every time. Because every time, I answer, ‘I have no idea, what does it mean to you?’

New York City, 4 May 2003


 - posted by Ally 
- credits: The Donnie Darko Book
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