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Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal Quotes

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Famous Jake Gyllenhaal Quotes

“I'm at a period in my life when I'm figuring out my idea of who I am and what I want and how to hold onto love -- all that big stuff. And I'm starting to realize that it can happen at any age. I know people who are in their 50s who are figuring out what they want and who they are, and I think it's great. It's like you're always approaching life as a beginner.”

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“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."”

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“I 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.”

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“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.”

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“I also think within the scene, a specific scene - if I were to play a part that I played 10 years ago now, my interpretation of that scene would be totally different. I would be making different choices. Because I can't somehow subtract all of the experiences that I've had in my life. And it's fascinating to see, because somewhere I'm very reflective in that. You know, I've been playing basically actually close to 40 years old, so I'm somewhere lost in age in this movie. But it's been fascinating to see that I can't subtract that time.”

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“You have formal rehearsal, a lot of things you don't have in movies - which is, you have to formally rehearse. You have to know your back story, discuss it, and almost everybody onstage has to know each other's [story], so that when it comes time to actually do it, you can throw it all away. That's the way I like to - and I didn't realize until very recently - that's the way I like to prepare for movies.”

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“I understand the opposite side of the camera. I have a profound respect for that. I have worked with people who, when you hit that mark, are doing 50 percent of your work for you. So, you know, it's a balance. When you walk into a mark and you're lit a certain way or something's happening so often you don't know what's behind you... And that's what's so strange about being a movie actor.”

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“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.”

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“Ang Lee just allowed me to make what we would call mistakes and had no judgment of them. He also empowered me. You know, he's like, "You're my actor. I chose you. Whatever you do is right." Right? "I made the decision, I'm complicit in choosing you. And I went through everything I could to choose you, so I feel good and whatever you're going to do I'm going to give you this space." And so it was very empowering.”

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“You run your plays, you know your plays, you study your plays, you study the other team, you do as much as you can, you go to practice, you get in shape, you do what you need to do, and then by the time you get to the game, you know your plays, but they have to feel like they're in your bones. That has to be an unconscious thing, it cannot be conscious. That is everything to me.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“I can't not have something attached to like what actually happens in real life. Like I can't do a romantic comedy without there being something where like, in the case of Annie Hathaway's character, her character ends up having Parkinson's, you know? To me, I feel like that's love, you know? Like to me. So every movie has to have that kind of sense of that.”

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