One Role That Still Haunts Jake Gyllenhaal In His Nightmares

Being an actor is hard, but being a great actor is much harder than anyone expects.

Between hectic schedules, bad reviews, mean reactions from critics, conflicts with directors, and non-stop paparazzi attention, it can be incredibly hard to focus on what you need to do for the role.

But when you push through all of that and get into the character, that's when the real movie magic happens.

Jake Gyllenhaal knows this from experience. Born into a family in the industry, he learned all the hard truths about this career path at an early age.

Having started acting in 1991 and finding his breakthrough roles only 8 years later, the actor took it seriously from the start.

So seriously, in fact, that some of his projects still have a lasting effect on his life.

"I always have nightmares. I don't really believe in nightmares. I don't believe the things that scare us are in our dreams. I think they are us communicating with ourselves. Even if I'm scared, I think they are helpful sometimes," the actor admitted in his interview for Variety.

The nightmares didn't come out of nowhere: they began with the production of Nightcrawler, a neo-noir psychological thriller directed and written by Dan Gilroy.

The film premiered in 2014 and made quite an impression on audiences and critics, both of whom praised Gyllenhaal's talent.

The actor had to go through a lot for the role, not only physically, but mentally as well. Not only did he have to lose 30 pounds, which took a toll on his mental health, but he also had to portray a character with deep personal issues.

Watching him go all out to explore the darkest parts of his character and give the audience the best performance he could was scary at times, even for the film crew.

Luckily, the effort paid off, and Gyllenhaal received much praise for his complete transformation into Nightcrawler.

If you want to see for yourself, you can watch Nightcrawler on MAX, Netflix or Hulu.

Source: Variety