As we get ready to welcome Jake Gyllenhaal to Dubai International Film Festival this December, where he will be presented Variety’s International Star of the Year Award, we look back on five of the biggest moments in his career.
2002: Donnie Darko
The role that started it all, Donnie Darko established right off the bat Gyllenhaal’s ability to capture the bizarre in a disturbingly understated way. In Donnie Darko , he was just an angsty, unremarkable teenager who happened to see a gigantic, creepy rabbit named Frank who told him the world was ending.
It wasn’t a critical success, and it wasn’t even Gyllenhaal’s first role. But it was a cult favourite and it was the role that put him on our radars as a loveable weirdo with noteworthy talent.
2005: Brokeback Mountain
One of the most defining films of Gyllenhaal’s career, Brokeback Mountain was a gritty look into an unanticipated relationship. Gyllenhaal played a rodeo cowboy across from Heath Ledger, who played a ranch hand. The two were hired as sheep herders and found themselves in the middle of a mental and physical whirlwind of confusion.
The role earned Gyllenhaal an Oscar nomination and showcased the broad spectrum of human emotion he was able to portray.
2011: Source Code
Gyllenhaal plays a US army helicopter pilot who wakes up in a peculiar eight-minute loop. He’s someone else, and he’s on a train, and the train’s about to explode. Through a series of strange events, he becomes responsible for stopping the bombing from happening. Every time he fails, he has to try again.
The thriller inspired praise among critics and became a box office success, opening at No 2. Gyllenhaal’s ability to bring urgency to his role, and to keep the watcher invested in the film’s outcome, once again cemented him as one of the most exciting actors of his generation.
2013: Prisoners
Another of Gyllenhaal’s thrillers, but with a darker tone. Starring opposite Hugh Jackman, whose character’s daughter is abducted, Gyllenhaal is a detective who takes things one step too far — he takes a suspect hostage and tries to force information out of him.
The film was uncomfortable to watch — a staple of many of Gyllenhaal’s roles. The film’s success relied on its believability — that such inhumane and deteriorating circumstances could unfold in the real world — and Gyllenhaal certainly held up his side of the bargain.
2014: Nightcrawler
Similarly to Prisoners, Nightcrawler was a thriller in which Gyllenhaal’s morally-corrupt character took things a step too far. He begins filming crime scenes in order to sell them off to news organisations for hefty sums of money, but when he gets too involved in his work, it brings out the worst in him.
Bottom line, he’s a protagonist people hated in a film people loved, a notoriously tough feat to achieve. The role earned him Golden Globe, Screen Actor’s Guild and Bafta nominations.
