Jake Gyllenhall is sure having fun promoting his latest film, Life. He and co-star/new BFF Ryan Reynolds took part in a loopy, NSFW interview with a reporter from a Washington D.C. Fox affiliate last week. I felt somewhat sorry for the guy, but the interview was hilarious. During the week’s promotional rounds, Jake made a solo appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday.
When asked about his co-star, Jake told Seth, “I’ve known him in passing a little bit, but I didn’t know him until we started working. He’s just a great dude.” Upon hearing this, Seth asked Jake to put his money where his mouth was and Facetime his new buddy. Jake made an attempt on set, worrying that Ryan wouldn’t pick up. He said as he was waiting, “This is crazy if he answers…Oh my God, please answer. Or don’t if you are taking a bath or something. Come on, man! You’re taking up precious TV time.”
Ryan eventually got back to Jake, while the show was on a filming break. Jake joked that, “Seth’s not here because he didn’t believe we were friends.” Jake showed the delighted audience that Ryan, indeed, was on the line, out walking his 5-month-old daughter, Ines. You can see the clip below.
The bromance between Ryan and Jake rolled on with an “autocomplete” interview by WIRED where both men were asked to guess their most-googled search phrases. Among the highlights, when asked if Ryan wears glasses, Jake interjected, “They’re fake! They’re totally fake. Those are just to make him look totally handsome and smart.” When the topic of Jake’s college education came up, he said, “I come across as somebody who probably is not that sharp.” Ryan came back with this zinger, “I figured you went to at least an online university.” And if you were wondering, Jake apparently exists on a diet of baby pandas. Ryan also does not regret kissing Andrew Garfield at the Golden Globes.
In Hollywood, relationships are made and discarded, but I think these two are going to be friends for life. Their rapport is magic.
Photos: Getty Images, WENN.com, Fame Flynet
I’m loving the friendship between these two, they have such great chemistry.
I had never liked Jake until I watched his Ryan interviews. He’s like the kid brother who has started to grow on you.
I’m feeling the same way, never liked him before until now.
I’ve always loved watching his movies but I felt he was distant so it’s nice to see him let loose and have some fun. He rarely stars in these commercial type films so it’s actually nice to finally see him do a legit promo tour and be more open.
Bromance or not, Life is not doing that great commercially and critically which is no surprise since Ryan has been box office poison for the longest time. Deadpool is the exception. And it extra sucks for Jake who has a generally good picker for movies and a good reputation but I’ve noticed the quality is going down again the more he veers into big budget/showy movies. It took him nearly a decade to recover from Prince of Persia, please Jake let the dream of being a Moviestar go! His strength is kooky effed up films and theatre. These big faux-intellectual/deep films are fooling nobody no matter how serious Jake gets about it (he’s also not that smart naturally sorry not sorry).
Life cost $58M to make and is well on its way to making $140M world wide at the box office. It didn’t get off to a hot start in the states but believe it or not there are other countries that watch films. It’s doing just fine in that regard. Also in regards to Ryan being box office poison….I love how folks just like to ignore the hits he has been in or the indies he’s made…but then throw his flops at him. I can go through every actor’s filmography and find several flops with their names attached it. Even the so called movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio. Now in regards to Jake….he rarely stars in blockbuster films. I wouldn’t even call Life a blockbuster film. Its budget doesn’t indicate it’s a blockbuster film. It’s a mid-budget film…Jake probably read the script, thought it would be fun and decided to do it. I don’t see why he has to seclude himself to just doing small indie films just because this film underperformed in the states.
I recall people claiming the same thing about Passengers when it came out because it didn’t do well in the states. The ignoring of the international box office is just astounding to me.
How did you get that number? It severely under-performed in the US (12mil) and yes I did take international box office into account, it was slightly better than US weekend (16mil), what’s your point? It’s only 28 mil in total! It still didn’t hit the budget mark which means it’s not doing well! Plus budget never includes promotion which is meant to lower the overall cost to the public (to lessen the flop). And technically it’s not a blockbuster but the heavy promotion (that happened way too late) means they want to make a lot of money, especially since Jake and Ryan’s chemistry/friendship is played up to the max and conventionally less focused on the plot (which is crap). It’s a typical move for movies that are not that good, focus on the stars, look how cute/funny/nice they are! See X-men franchise for the best example of that tactic.
It has to make 3x its budget so it would still not be a profit either way though. People are not going in droves to watch this movie despite an ensemble cast of which Jake and Ryan and the faces of. Both Ryan and Jake acted in small movies when obvious Moviestar movies burned them badly because they’re not Moviestar material no matter how hard they try.
I agree that international box office is important but being honest about how it works is important. Life cost $58 million (according to the studio 😏). OK. Let’s add in at least $15-20 million for promotion (and I’m estimating insanely low). So at least $75 million in costs. Let’s say it makes $140 million….the studio doesn’t keep that! Exhibitors keep roughly half and overseas in some territories they keep more. So best case scenario say they get maybe $70 million from box office? Still in the red. Not great. Maybe a small profit after streaming and bluray but not great at all.
Passengers? Same story. $110 million budget plus minimum $30 million in promotion (and I’m waaaay under estimating) and you still make only $294 million worldwide? Keeping maybe $147 million (in reality it’s less). Likely no profit or a minuscule one at the box office, a bit of money later. That’s it?! After hiring and paying for Pratt and J Law?!? That’s awful!!
Make no mistake, stars are not selling. The concept is selling. Stars in the wrong concept and the best you can hope is not to fall on your face.
@Sam You’re totally right, Jake said in one of these interviews that after making such serious movies that took a toll on him he wanted something lighter and something fun!
The movie literally just came out. It didn’t open in all of the big markets internationally either. I track the box office like it’s my job. Based on how it opened in the states and the countries it has opened in…its on its way to roughly $130M….probably more depending on how it does in China. That’s the point. You’re judging it solely off its OW performance. If we did that with every movie…oh boy.
This wasn’t a blockbuster film so no it doesn’t have to make 3x its budget. The mid-budget films have to double their budget and they’re fine. And what heavy promotion? All the interviews they did were on the same day and Jake went on the late night shows like any star who had a movie coming out would. Of course every studio wants their film to do well. But to act like this was some huge blockbuster film and that it’s going to bomb is not the case. It underperformed in the states, yes….but like I said its international numbers are good enough.
And I hate to break it to you but this whole idea of a movie star putting butts in seats is gone. Very few of them have that power anymore. I can probably count five of them. Denzel, Leo, Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy and Tom Hanks. It’s all about the concept, marketing etc. It’s why we’ve gone from original films taking up our screens to a bunch of franchise films and reboots. And that actually makes me sad. My favorite movie from last year was The Nice Guys…got great reviews and everything but I’m not getting a sequel because it made $58M on a budget of $50M. It stars freaking Russel Crowe and Ryan Gosling!!! And then people complain about why we don’t have original films. It’s frustrating.
However you want to spin it, this was Ryans first post Deadpool opportunity to prove himself to be the Movie Star Hollywood has insisted he is for the last ten years. Ryan knows this, which is why he pulled out all the stops for the campaign. He should have been able to springboard Deadpool into stronger US numbers for this mess. I’m addressing Ryan in particular because everyone recognises that Gyllenhaa was slumming it with this movie. He (and Gosling in the case of Nice Guys) has distinguished himself with the critical acclaim card many times over so he is held to a serious actors standard and not a movie stars standard. Reynolds however presents as a Movie Star because none of his serious roles gained traction and in accepting both the star on the Walk of Fame, the Peoples Sexiest Man Alive and the roles he is picking (among other things) he is telegraphing Movie Star not Actor.
Anyway, Hollywood likes to make their money back here and then count the International market as bonus. When an actor fails to do that studios are less likely to fully finance future films and they end up relying on partnerships from foreign companies. In other words, movies become harder to greenlight and once you have foreign partners giving production notes to cater the movie to their markets, you increasingly end up with the kinds of films Travolta is now making. Movies with a distinct Steven Seagal feel because thats what really sells in a lot of these markets. Now theres nothing wrong with that except it will inch the star to B movie making and closer to the Dlist.
@Sam – it’s extremely unlikely that international box office will help Life to hit status since there’s those other little movies called Beauty and the Beast and Logan out right now and hoovering up all the spare cash.
12 mil is a weak opening for a 50+ mil movie no matter how you slice it, and I don’t think the word of mouth is strong enough to propel this to more. Sucks because I love Jake but the movie is rather unintentionally corny in places. I ended up wishing I’d gone for Rogue One instead, space movies-wise (yes, I know – a franchise movie!)
@Teacakes no you’re right. I was just very frustrated when I woke up this morning and saw the box office numbers for all the films in general. The top three films are all franchise films. I won’t deny it but I’m a huge Jake fan and I love Ryan (I like his indie films way more than any of the commercial crap he does). For me I guess it’s just upsetting to see the direction the film industry is heading in. It’s to the point where the film either has to have a low budget or it has to be a franchise film in order to be successful. And even the former isn’t a given. I mean the majority of “movie stars” now a days are all franchise actors or actresses. It’s just shocking to me how a decade ago, being a movie star meant selling an original property and now being a movie star is simply being the face of a franchise. Sure there are exceptions as I mentioned above….but it’s still weird to me. I don’t know. I’m probably over thinking all of this but here I am talking about this in a comment section about the movie Life so there ya go lol
Sam, Sony spent at least 10 million on Superbowl commercials for Life, plus TV and youtube ads, additional marketing etc. It was quite an aggressive marketing campaign.
This film needs to make more than his budget times two to break even, especially with most of the BO coming from overseas since studios make more money from a movie that does well in the US (bigger share).
And does the film even open in China? Tried to look it up on imdb but there was no Chinese release date.
@ Artemis-“His strength is kooky effed up films and theatre.”
LOL and YAAAASSSSSS 🙌 Favorite kind of movie, one of my favorite actors in those movies!
Awww, look, they’re like totes friends!!
*Checks box office.*
Annnnnd no one went to see their movie. Oh.
I’m not saying they’re not genuinely friends, I just imagine how Hollywood PR must tear their hair out these days how “stars” just cannot sell a movie anymore.
Honestly that’s why I don’t understand why some stars get paid so much money. I know in this case that Jake and Ryan weren’t paid an enormous amount because the budget is low for a space film but sometimes I see the salaries of movie stars and I’m like but why? It’s all about concepts now a days. And how well the marketing campaign is. It puts a lot of studios in a weird spot though. It’s why we have seen franchise films take over. They’ve become the safe bet when it comes to the studio making money. Luckily for both Ryan and Jake….this film had a modest budget so Sony won’t be losing money on it once its run is complete. But an underwhelming start in the states for sure.
Its too much. Of course they are buddies but this whole junket tour they amped it to the point of irritating. Gyllenhaal has no cool and Reynolds doesnt know when to stop trying to be the funniest guy in the room. I had major second hand embarrassment watching their junkets.
Aww, there hilarious. That nervous but before the face time was cute and relatable. If it was me, I’d be like, “please pick up, don’t leave me hanging. No, don’t pick, it’d be too embarrassing!!!”. lol
Oh my, that wired interview was the cutest thing ever. I have a soft spot for Jake, he seems so damn sweet and genuine, and has those big blue eyes. It’s nice to see him loosen up a bit with Ryan, maybe he can teach Ryan to be more serious. 🙂
I almost hate to say this, but I was so excited to see “Life” this weekend and was a little disappointed. I actually laughed a few times because of the creature. The acting wasn’t an issue at all though, Jake especially did a great job, Ryan too but we didn’t get much of him. The story was decent but since I’m such a space nerd I had issues with believability:)
They would probably be fun to go to dinner with together.
Jake has a real Oscar-baity film coming out later this year – Stronger. It’s the story of Jeff Baumann, who lost both legs in the Boston Marathon Bombing and, on his way into surgery, convinced that he wasn’t going to make it, gave police/FBI a description of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whom he saw plant the first bomb.
I’m here for their bromance, the interviews are really fun to watch and it’s nice to see Jake loosen up. Ryan is definitely someone I’d want to hang out
They are really cute together. Like most people are saying, it is nice to see Jake loosen up and not take himself so seriously. He’s always been one of my faveotir actors, he just so damn talented. I can’t help but wonder what he’s like in his personal life. He always seems… a little weird time. I think he is a good guy and he means well, but he seems off sometimes in interviews. I wouldn’t be surprised if it came out that he was a total d-bag in real life.
I saw the film mostly because I didn’t want to Beauty and the Beast (at least not yet). It was…okay. Not great but not terrible either. It was just nice time out of the house on a Saturday for a change.
I absolutely love Jake, I saw Life just because of him, I’ll see him in anything. He’s so magnetic on screen. I can’t watch too much of him off-screen as I just find him completely irresistible lol dunno if that makes sense.