Jake Gyllenhaal covers the July issue of Esquire to promote his role in Southpaw. Jake plays a down-and-out boxer, Billy Hope, who has to claw his way back from rock bottom. He buffed up by eating extra meals and working out 6 hours daily. Jake badly wants an Oscar, and he really should have been nominated last year for Nightcrawler. Dude deserved the nomination over Bradley Cooper and the beige booty shorts. Both men underwent body tranformations. BCoop gained weight, and Jake lost it (but had the better performance). Now it’s Jake’s turn to show off a buff physique. Maybe this will be his year.

Director Antoine Fuqua says Jake was so committed that he refused a stunt double and “even broke up with his girlfriend because he was at the ring every day!” Here are some excerpts from Jake:

Why he made Prince of Persia and Day After Tomorrow: “I took things because they were jobs. I mean people are paying you money, you’re 26, are you kidding? I woke up one day and I wasn’t in the right room. It was like a David Byrne song: ‘That’s not my beautiful house. That’s not my beautiful wife.’”

His Southpaw character: “He’s a guy that couldn’t deal with his own shame. The director Ed Zwick [Love & Other Drugs (2010)] told me this wonderful thing: ‘Everything you learn is through shame.’ It’s so true. There’s those moments where you face humiliation, they’re so freeing if you can get through them … I didn’t do a boxing movie to do a boxing movie, if you know what I mean.”

On transforming for a role: “Physicality is a way into the mental state of a character. I get off on knowing that my energy has shifted. My technical side is going, ‘Yeah, you’re a bit of a maniac, but you know how to keep it in check.’ But it’s not like this huge deal. It’s that Louis CK thing, [about] when people say they’re ‘starving.’ Maybe you should rethink that word? You had a meal four hours ago!”

Empathy has a molecular, mystical quality: “I believe deeply in the unconscious. That you literally accumulate the molecules of the space that you’re in. We’re like 90 per cent water, so naturally we are going to be affected by the moon when it’s full: if the sea is, why wouldn’t we be? That seems scientific to me. So, if you spend enough time in whatever environment your character would exist in … then the molecules of that environment must transfer somehow. And then you put it on screen, and people go, ‘I feel something that I don’t normally feel.’”

[From Esquire]

The part about empathy relates to Jake’s belief that physically immersing himself in a role will enhance his understanding of a character. Jake is not alone in thinking that full moons affect human behavior (although the average adult’s body is 55-60% water, not 90%). Lots of people feel the same way, and there are plenty of people who experience headaches and various other ailments during full moons. The discussion is a little spacey, but all of the strange things that happen can’t be mere coincidences, right? Discuss.

Photos courtesy of Esquire & WENN