Jake Gyllenhaal Talks Source Code

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Category: Celebrity News, Interviews, Pictures

Published on Monday, 23 April 2012 22:57

Written by Janet Walker

 SOURCE CODE, the mind bending DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE experimentation adventure, from SUMMIT Entertainment and Vendome Pictures starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Duncan Jones opens everywhere Friday, April 1, 2011.

SOURCE CODE is built around a fictitious Department of Defense Experimentation program, similiar to those researched at DARPA and built around the belief it iwll be the one single program which will combat gloabl terrorism.  SOURCE CODE weaves truth, fantasy, suspense, love, romance, hope and high tech puzzle solving into a ninety-three minute futuristic race that explodes from the screen with electrifying.

Having the opportunity to speak with JAKE GYHELLHALL at the recent SOURCE CODE Press Junket, held at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, he is pleasant, articulate, down to earth and generous.

SOURCE CODE stars Gyllenhaal as US Army Blackhawk Helicopter pilot Captain Colter Steven, a captive, held against his will, in a secretive well-funded scientific anti-terrorism introductory program.   SOURCE CODE is produced by Mark Gordon, Phillipe Rousselet and Jordan Wynn and written by newcomer Ben Ripley.

Janet Walker:  Each one of the SOURCE CODE’s seems like a vignette in and of itself. How would you make a scene fresh including fresh dialogue and still capture what was necessary?

Jake Gyllenhaal: Well, each Ben Ripley had written a script that was so structurally tight that every clue, even as in the movie, you think you saw where you were going and you don’t really have any idea.  The script does it the same way. So we knew variation was going to be the only way we could be engaging. So, we thought of each SOURCE CODE like a chapter in a book, and each one had to tell its own story like a Novella, where if we only had the opportunity to tell this in a short film, could you take that SOURCE CODE out and would it make sense by itself.

So each one had a name and each one had a relationship between me and Michelle that was different and how it changed because that was the most important part of each one of the SOURCE CODE’s. The bombing and who the bomber was and all that stuff, very clearly outlined by the talented Mr. Ripley so we didn’t really have to worry about that so much. What we had to worry about was the storyline between me and Michelle. The first one was called something like, Absolute Chaos, the second The SIM, and so on and as we went on. So each one was looked at like its own piece of the story so in that way we knew Michelle, this might get a little complicated, was the unconscious action of the story so whatever variation she had would be an unconscious relationship. When she puts her arm up in the third SOUCRE CODE and we enter the scene like that and the audience ‘goes wait, there’s something different.’ But they don’t really know exactly what it is.

My character is much more a conscious relationship to the SOURCE CODE so when you enter I can vary things based on my behavior. And Duncan always had opportunities to vary things with variations of visuals and audio and all the things that are at the director’s disposal. How you would enter a scene, how a shot would begin, once we started, once people knew they weren’t going to end the scene the same way, because we really don’t end it the same way and we don’t begin it the same way, we were constantly improvising, constantly trying out different ideas and then to be really honest, in the end we had Paul Hirsch, the brilliant editor Paul Hirsch, upstairs cutting together the first SOURCE CODE when we were on the second one and if we needed something or he saw something or didn’t understand this and we’d all debate it and maybe we’d shoot something but very rarely did we go back and re-shoot. There were just a million ideas in each one of these chapters.

Janet Walker: Do have particular moments of the film that resonate with you?

Jake Gyllenhaal:  Well, I thinkwhat I resonate with a lotis the story. It’s the love story in that it’s a simple choice.  It’s romantic in the end but the end the choice with this guy isn’t, ‘Oh am I really going to save the world.’ The choice starts with a guy, essentially in someone else body, but its starts with a guy who’s nervous or won’t ask this girl to get a cup of coffee and then he has to get blown up eight times before he’s going to ask this girl for a cup of coffee.  I do relate to that. Sometimes it does feels when you walk up to someone and your intrigued by them to gather up the gumption to ask somebody a question like that feels like you’re blowing up inside eight times.

And I also do relate to this idea of regret, this idea of choices you make when you think you know what the right choice is and someone you love or your family saying, ‘Don’t do that or hey you know  just proceed with caution here’ and you’re like ‘I got it! I know!’ Then, just learning those lessons and the regret of learning those lessons especially with his father.

Janet Walker:  Is there a statement you’d like the audience to take from SOURCE CODE?

Jake Gyllenhaal:  Yes. I want people to have had, this journey is tense, and this movie really works in an exceptional way and I think where it opens up in places is at the very end.  I hope they walk away with the ability to question, well not to question, but to have a conversation that can continue throughout their days and their weeks after seeing it and perhaps, the great movies I love to watch, I want to go back and see again and find my way through a second time.

Throughout the roundtable he described his director Duncan Jones as someone that the kind of guy “I like. Someone that would stop meetings to involve himself in his own life which is what I respected about him and I still do.” The reaction to the film, has been excellent and “It’s so nice having people loving Duncan because he is a great guy.”  Very different on set than he is in life which I respect.

SOURCE CODE stars Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale/Syriana) as Dr. Rutledge, Vera Farmiga (The Departed/Up In the Air) as his mission minded Air Force Captain, Colleen Goodwin, and Michelle Monaghan (Trucker/Eagle Eye) as Christina Warren, the unsuspecting travel companion.

SOURCE CODE delivers an explosive suspenseful thrill ride!

For more information on SOURCE CODE: www.enterthesourcecode.com