SXSW 2016 - Jake Gyllenhaal Talks Acting and His New Film Demolition

During this year’s SXSW Festival in Austin Texas, actor Jake Gyllenhaal discussed his diverse movie career during the aptly named panel, “A Conversation with Jake Gyllenhaal.”

I was surprised by Gyllenhaal’s humor as he shared stories from various sets. The audience found one particularly entertaining; he explained how his eyes appear cross-eyed on film when certain anamorphic camera lenses are used. This led to confusion as the camera crew would repeatedly look from Gyllenhaal to the monitor to compare what they were seeing.

One of the topics that repeatedly came up during the panel was Gyllenhaal’s physical transformations for his various roles. When it came to his character Billy Hope in the 2015 film Southpaw, Gyllenhaal told the audience the look came naturally, “I didn’t know how to box before I started that movie. I was pretty terrified I was going to look like an idiot because Antoine Fuqua told me I wasn’t going to have a double. So I learned over five months how to box and in learning how to box, you get in really good shape.”

Gyllenhaal was also at SXSW to premiere his new movie, Demolition. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, the film takes a fascinating look at how people deal with tragedy. Demolition’s trailer, which you can find below, was played during the panel and I attended a screening later that night.

Gyllenhaal plays Davis Mitchell, an investment banker fighting to cope with the loss of his wife Julia (Heather Lind) following a tragic car accident. Anyone who has lost a loved one will tell you everyone reacts differently; for Davis, it’s his lack of emotion that causes concern. It’s fascinating watching Davis struggle to find the feelings that everyone else thinks he should be experiencing.

Whoever said, “Sometimes, you have to tear down in order to rebuild” never met Davis, who takes the advice literally as he deconstructs his life piece by piece to try to find answers. Davis’ father-in-law Phil (Chris Cooper) tries to get him to keep it together.

Things get interesting when Davis writes a complaint letter to a vending machine company, which ultimately leads to a unique friendship with Karen (Naomi Watts), the company’s customer service representative. The two end up forming a unique friendship that includes Karen’s son Chris (Judah Lewis), who has issues of his own.

In many ways, Demolition reminds me of the 2008 Indie film Henry Poole is Here. Both involve men who find themselves lost and end up befriending a mother and her child. Each film has a somber tone that makes it depressing to watch at times. Despite that, I enjoyed Demolition and am giving it three out of five stars. I hope it gets a wider release over time.

Demolition will have a limited release by Fox Searchlight Pictures on April 8, 2016.

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Greg Staffa

I provide testosterone to the site. You won’t be reading about how nice a actress looks in a dress or how much of a hunk Matt Bomer is in my reviews. I describe colors using words like brown, not taupe. My twitter name is @staffaroadtrip because I love road trips and have done two different 48-state road trips since 2008. My favorite show is White Collar.