Jake Gyllenhaal Interview For Duncan Jones ‘Source Code’

‘Souce Code’ follows decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who waking up in the body of an unknown man, discovers he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the “Source Code,” a program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack. Filled with mind-boggling twists and heart-pounding suspense, ‘Source Code’ is an exhilarating action-thriller directed by Duncan Jones (Moon) also starring Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye, Due Date), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Departed), and Jeffrey Wright (Quantum of Solace, Syriana). Check out what the films lead star Jake Gyllenhaal had to say about the film. ‘Source Code’ is in cinemas now.

How did you get involved with Source Code?

Jake Gyllenhaal: I was sent the script by Mark Gordon and Jordan Wynn, who developed the movie. I had made another movie with Mark Gordon, he and I are pretty close. He sent me the script and I read it, I thought it was just incredibly engaging.  I read the first fifteen pages of the script, much like the first five minutes of the movie, and I was totally engrossed, I then actually put it down because I thought it wouldn’t be as good for the next hundred pages (laughs). I eventually did pick it up soon after because I couldn’t leave it that long, it just got better and better. I just thought I want to do this, I totally want to do this, even though at the time there wasn’t even a director, but I said it really depends on who’s going to direct this movie. The fact that there’s a real character in here, hopefully we can develop him. Someone who has real stuff going on. Not just a guy in the middle of a catastrophe. They agreed and asked me “who would be my choice?” I answered “someone like Duncan Jones,” because I had just seen ‘Moon’ and I just thought it was extraordinary. So they said “ok, let’s send it to him and see what he thinks,” so we ended up sending it to him, I had already met with him in a general sort of meeting, we really got along, I never thought he’d want to do it (laughs). But then five days later we got a call saying Duncan Jones wants to make this movie, then just four months later we’re making the movie. It was just unreal.

There’s some really interesting limitations and constraints to what your character can do in this movie. What was that like working with?

Jake Gyllenhaal: I think constraint and limitations are what brings out creativity, even in historical times when people are constrained and go through hard times, some of the most beautiful art comes out of that. I think it’s the same thing on a movie where when you have a smaller budget, even though you want it to seem like a big one with this, it means you have to think five steps ahead, where as if you had more money you could think two steps ahead. I loved it, I loved it thematically too, we had three sets, we had to keep driving a story on these three very small sets, so you were constantly thinking.

I’m someone who’s always up for a challenge. The variation is what makes this movie, the variation comes from us deciding very clearly each “source code” is going to be its own chapter in the book of the movie, so each chapter is going to have its own personality, its own separate story, its own reasoning’s, its own rules sometimes, and because of that there’s going to be great variation, that all came from the constraints.

How was working with Michelle Monaghan? Your characters have such a unique dynamic.

Jake Gyllenhaal: What was really important to Duncan when he cast the role was that the women who plays this part had to be someone that you as an audience immediately loved, just took too and believed and trusted. Someone you knew had a good heart. That is a rare quality to find in somebody. Michelle just has that quality inheritingly. I believe even if she had no lines in the movie and she just sat there you would believe my character would fall in love with her.

With us, she happens to be so smart, such an incredible improver, you throw things at her she has great lines to throw back. She has a really crude sense of humour, she was always up for pretty much anything. She was never offended by anything which was nice (laughs). I happen to be the same kind of way so we played really well off each other. She’s obviously gorgeous, but has a real sense of someone you can talk to, and someone that you can easily fall for and that’s exactly what happens with my character.

How was it working with Vera Farmiga? That was another completely different dynamic how your relationship has to develop with her. There’s a lot of layers in what’s not said.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Yeah. With Vera it was almost an interesting acting exercise. Vera and I rehearsed before hand, but since we were both so isolated from each other in the movie, and even in the process of making the movie. What happened was I had a feeling, because of the rehearsal, of the way she would respond. She was there for my first day of shooting in the pod, then she recorded her lines so she would play them back. Sometimes that didn’t work so well, sometimes it would work better for me to just memorise her lines and talk to myself…if that makes sense (laughs). It became incredibly disorientating and isolating in knowing sort of how she would respond, but not seeing her or hearing her. But ultimately sensing her attention because I had spent some time with her at rehearsal. It makes it for a very interesting interaction on screen.

I’m kind of bummed that we didn’t really get to work with each other face to face because she’s such an extraordinary actress. We were so lucky to have her on this movie. I think she just ups the quality of the relationship. She upped my performance in rehearsals. To know that she’s the other actor on the other end just made me want to work even harder.

The film has its own sort of genre, you could call it a sci-fi, a thriller, a love story, there’s so much different things going on, a bit of Hitchcock in it. What do you think it is, and do you love that it’s a bit of everything?

Jake Gyllenhaal: I think this movie, first and foremost is a real thriller. It’s a very tense ride, almost like a game of clue. But I consider it a drama because it’s a story about a guy who’s trying to find out essentially where he is, where he fits in, and who he is, what is his identity. That’s a huge philosophical question, it’s very dramatic. Regardless of all the rules people consider to be a sci-fi, thriller, or romance, I consider it a drama first and foremost because it’s really a character study to me.

The dea of going back into the last eight minutes of someone’s life brings up so much possibilities.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Yeah, when I think about the concept of what the “source code” is, and that it’s this computer programme that lets you go back in this body of somebody else for the last eight minutes of their life, it brings up millions of ideas for me, there’s so many scenario’s that I could think of. As somebody who has seen horrific events happen, who has been witness to some, who admires historical figures who have been taken  to early, I wish I could go into Martin Luther King’s body and say don’t get up on that balcony, I wish I could be put into John F Kennedy’s body, you name it. Also given the wake of all the horrible things that are currently going on in the world, how extraordinary would it be for you to have a computer programme that allows you to go into a nuclear scientists body in Japan and say this is about to happen, you might have to do this or that to stop that from happening. Or to give people a warning, whatever it might be. There are millions of things you could do. I’m just hoping there’s some twelve year old kid who sees this movie and is this brilliant scientist and can invent something like this.