Jake Gyllenhaal Quotations

I am inherently a little brother - that's just my nature. It has to do with my sister being very strong and wanting to protect me. It's the natural order of things.

I grew up in a family where many of our close friends were gay couples. As well as that, every man goes through a period of thinking they're attracted to another guy.

I like the idea of the adventurer's spirit. I think that is very much what a man searches for, in a certain way.

We were talking about the kissing in the movie just recently. Clearly, it's pretty challenging material, but Ang said two men herding sheep was far more sexual than two men having sex on screen.

I've learned over the years that freedom is just the other side of discipline.

I have a mentor. I have... guides. I have a lot of guides. Not a lot, but people whose opinions I really respect and who I will turn to.

Don't listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you. If it's what you want to do and it's within yourself, then keep going and try to do it for the rest of your life.

I think family is the most important thing in the world. I think your own family is the most complicated thing in the world, and I think it's the most beautiful thing in the world.

I think it's important for every man to find the right woman and every woman to find the right man.

Crazy people don't sit around wondering if they're nuts.

When you have a lot of opportunities, which I am blessed to have had in terms of my work, you get into the habit of not paying attention to certain specifics. And as we get busy, anything we do is the same thing.

I think as an actor you have to be open to your emotions - that's how you tap into other characters. Besides, by being so open I've come to terms with how screwed I am!

Romance is important, but to have a friend you can use as a mirror, who can give you an objective response, that's what's really important.

I liken movies to playing a piano: Sometimes you're playing the chords and different notes with unresolved cadences and playing all major chords that are all over the place, and you're enjoying yourself with a great, simple melody.

It bothers me when people say, 'Oh, you're so down to earth - for an actor.' Even when they don't say 'for an actor,' I feel like that's the implication. Why are the standards so low for performers?

I want, overall, to trust what I know is right. There have been many times when I haven't.

Theater has given me a different perspective on the way I approach films.

Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, 'exhaust every possibility.' Once you get to a certain place, it's like you just deliver everything you've got. Don't have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again.

I heard about the movie business before I even knew what it was. So I surround myself now with people who are like, 'Can we not talk about movies for an hour?'

Do I take care of my body and take conditioning seriously? Yes.

I think that we all have within us the potential for almost anything. If we play close attention to our lives, then we can get at it somehow.

My mum and dad are pretty amazing chefs and they spent most of my childhood cooking really extravagant things for my sister and me.

As much as I am one for real human interaction, I also want to make a show that's entertaining and that people want to see.

I don't think you can approach any piece of art with boundaries or rules. I think respect is a very important thing, but I also think what we discover along the way is really important.

I would really love to direct one day. I think there are certain actors who love the character and the performance and that's all they want to be a part of.

I wouldn't call it a western, ... I would call it a love story that happens to take place in the West.

Some movies you fall a step behind, and some you stay in the same place, make the same choices. And then sometimes there are people who know more than you but show you, and that's the maximum you can hope for - doing that with someone who says, 'I like you for what you are, and I want you to be in my picture.'

One role blends into the next role. I mean, there's strange idiosyncrasies from roles that I play that I picked up that will never go away.

I don't always think it's necessary for somebody to be nice all the time.

I can't make a movie unless I believe in the themes behind it. I mean, that's the first question I ask myself, always, is, 'What is this movie about?'

If it does shed light on the idea that there's real love involved ... it's great. When two people love each other, they love each other. And people should hold on to it as hard as they can, whether it's homosexual or heterosexual.

We made out, and they had a baby.

I thought I was a long shot, but this was a role I was going to fight for.

I think something more formulaic was expected. But this movie is not just about the experience of a soldier, but also of a human being. We live in a world that is not always full of action.

I think that more and more there's a sense that the best performances I can give are the ones that are the truest to who I am. The further I move away from who I am, the worse they are.

I thought Heath had broken my nose while we were filming that scene. Both Michelle and Ang kept insisting the kiss had to be more fierce, more intense, more passionate, so Heath pushed me against the wall and came in really hard for the kiss.

Usually, the action's moving so fast, you don't get the opportunity to see the psychology, really,

That was so scary, the last scene Heath and I shot together. We finally get to say to each other what we want to say, and I was really nervous because there were so many emotions, and both men have been holding so much back. Luckily, the dialogue is so great that it worked out.

My character's the one that kind of initiates these sexual encounters, which to me was, like, totally foreign.

There have been times when I've been working with women and they just said, 'Hey, I've faked it before. I can fake it again.'

When I was in 'Jarhead,' I felt really good about my body, really confident,

Working on a movie like 'Prince of Persia' was awesome. It was great fun to be an action hero and to jump around, running off walls and fighting and having great quippy lines.

The sheep were interesting. They were the easiest thing. They just naturally herd, and they are naturally stupid.

Ang Lee is fierce in his timidity, his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him. He's frustrating and so damn wise.

Ang was great ... because he would set up situations and then let me and Heath decide what to do within the space Ang created.

You get to see the actors put through the wringer.

But obviously, it means a hundred million things to other people. It's one big question. So, naturally, people have a lot of answers.

Ask yourself why a red carpet is red. It could be any colour.

There's inevitably a lot of talk about things like that,

I grew up in L.A., so the idea of same-sex relationships is hardly foreign to me. I think there comes a time when everyone asks himself about his sexuality. That doesn't mean you experiment, but you definitely think about your preferences.

I'm like, 'What world am I living in?' Aren't movies made to have something to say? Why make a movie if you don't have something to say? What are you doing it for? Are you doing it because you want to make a lot of money?

I had a lot of people saying to me, to my surprise, thank you for making it.

If you're going to spend seven months of your life - for me seven months, for Roland Emmerich, 3, 4, 5 years of his life - doing something, I think you have to have something to say.

I've had a lot of people say to me after the film, to my surprise, 'Thank you for making it. It's made a social impression, and that social impression to me is the aftermath of an artistic impression, and so much more important.

I'm going to continue doing what I want to do. And if it means I want to go and make a big movie, if it has something to say, I will want to make it. I don't want to spend my life wasting my time. If it's a big movie, I want to do it. If it's a small movie, I want to do it.

I don't think my approach to acting is all necessarily in service of the character. I think, selfishly, I've put it in service of myself, my perspective on the world and helping my life.

I remember being in college knowing I didn't want to go anymore. I wanted to try and become an actor. There is a something in me, with a risk of sounding cliche, that I just had to do it. I knew from an early age that acting was my path.

As an actor, it's a constant question of whether I will ever get hired again ... (but) this idea is so important, and if that meant for a couple of takes I was going to have to make out with some guy, then so be it,

The idea that both a film and a book could be made about waiting and boredom, and make them entertaining, was pretty extraordinary,

The idea of competition, particularly in a creative atmosphere, is always there. And, if you don't acknowledge that, you are doing yourself and the process a disservice.

Every journey starts with fear.

Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real.

I have a profound respect for cinematographers. That is my secret sauce. Like they are everything to me.

I was listening to this Adele song, where she's like, "When we were young..." I was like, "You're 27. Are you kidding me?

I'm always nervous about it. You know, somehow, without even knowing it, I try and recreate the idea of what it feels like to go in front of an audience every night when I'm making a film. And that similar type of pressure and excitement before a scene, or preparing for a movie, so...

In that way, as an actor in particular, you're powerless. And so in that way as an actor in particular you can't make mistakes.

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.

Not to say that you should be constantly trying to change the world, but I think it's important to know that whatever we do has an implication and has an effect, and because of that it is political.

I think I find tactile things, you know. Just the feeling of blood itself is enough for me. If you, even if it's not real blood. I mean that's enough, like sometimes there are very simple things that are enough.

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.

By cool, I don't mean cool. I mean vulnerable and a mess.

I think my strength is to do a take all the way through. I am definitely not someone who can do a sprint. Maybe I am not that smart, but it takes me a while to find the moment, and I like to be pushed toward it.

I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to

Often times it's really hard for me to articulate why I connect to something.

Don't listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you.

When I walk into a screening, I'm nervous in a different way than I am as an actor. But the response is ultimately I know how I feel about it and that's what matters to me the most.

When I was 19, I thought [Brokeback Mountain] was going to be the best movie ever made. And everyone was going to see it and it was just going to be incredible. And then nobody saw it and it didn't get bought at Sundance. And it was a really great experience. Humbling. And then it's since found its way.

I love artists. I love watching other people work.

You can’t just lump things into two categories. Things aren’t that simple.

I love storytelling, you know, beyond anything. I love a great story beyond a great performance. Storytelling is about what we all do together and how we collaborate together. A performance can be a collaboration in ways, but oftentimes it's one individual thing.

I'm superstitious a little bit.

I like that when you create you really do create with a very small group of people, and in that space, before it goes out to all these people, that's what I love.

Being a star doesn't last. That's not what life should be about. It's a complete illusion that really has nothing to do with you. For me, finding out about life is the most important thing.

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.

Sometimes you need an anchor, whatever it might be. You need a space to connect. So often you get into a way of doing things.

I've become obsessed with learning other languages in movies, because I was like, since I was like, but I learned how to box so why don't I just learn another language for a movie?

I've never had sex with boxers on and it's an odd thing to watch actors do. That's not saying I haven't tried... I just don't recommend it!

I had been brought up in an elementary school where, my first few grades, I remember being specifically told that my teachers were gay. I was just that age and that was just how it was, and my parents were very... You know, that's how I was raised. Like super-progressive.

When I was younger, I did work with coach. I went to this place called Actors Space in the Valley. I was pretty young, and we were doing acting and improvisation. But no, no I didn't go to RADA, I didn't do that. But I do now work with an acting coach, primarily for the initial intellectual connection to the material.

I hope I'm a spiritual person. I'm trying to be a spiritual person.

Every man goes through a period of thinking they're attracted to another guy.

Sometimes what I actually love to do is go to a farm and get fresh milk or watch a pig get slaughtered.

I think, when someone say, "When did you feel like an actor?" it's those moments when I feel like, "I'm an actor, wow." That's an extraordinary moment for me. So it's not like I walk around going, "I'm an actor."

'Brokeback Mountain' takes all your conceptions of America, and the Western, and cowboys, and sexuality, and love, and it stirs them all up.

But you need to strive to try and communicate and try and change things in a similar way. And then people can think that's pretentious or whatever, but it's your life's work, and you've decided that. That's what they made us believe. So we have a pretty high standard, which is at times great and at times not.

I fooled around with Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams got pregnant.

As an actor, no matter what, you're at the whim of so many other people all the time.

My parents taught me as a kid: do your work. Do it well. Try as hard as you can, whatever it is. It will one day, for the long [run], it will make some sort of change somewhere.

Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.

I'm more Baskin-Robbins style myself.