Jake Gyllenhaal Biography
Star of the controversial Brokeback Mountain film Jake Gyllenhaal was born Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal on Dec. 19th 1980 in Los Angeles, California, USA to a limelight family that consisted of Stephen Gyllenhaal, his father who earned living through directing films and his mother Naomi Foner as a scriptwriter for film productions. The early life of Gyllenhaal junior saw him frequent the sets where his parents worked, quickly learning how business was conducted and in the process earning the young boy vast experience from watching experienced actors in play.
Gyllenhaal was schooled at the Harvard Westlake School (Los Angeles) and later he had a brief stint at the Columbia University in 1998 that was followed by a dropout from college citing a need for more excitement that could only be found on stage and not in a classroom.
Naomi and Stephen were worried about their young son’s interest in acting consuming his childhood life with many demands so they kept him from acting professionally until after his tenth birthday. A debut role by Gyllenhaal saw him featured on ‘City Slickers’ in 1991, the low key film was followed by and appearance in ‘ A Dangerous woman’ in 1993 and ‘Homegrown’ in 1998. A couple of roles in between and Gyllenhaal got into the 2000’s decade with a wealth of films on his belt.
His most successful yet controversial role came in 2005 when he played Jack Twist in ‘Brokeback Mountain’, the film’s storyline was set on a farming region where Jack Twist met and fell in love with a cowboy who later became a sexual partner for a period of 20 years. The film shows the hardships that the gay couple went through in a bit to save their love. The film became the most talked about in 2005 and awards for the daring performance begun to flow in.
Gyllenhaal was awarded the 2006 Best Kiss Award at the MTV Movie Awards as well as the BAFTA Best Supporting Actor, The Americans for the Arts National Arts Awards honoured the actor with a Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ showed the world the real life struggles of gay couples as they tried to deal with neglect and humiliation by society.
He worked with award winning producer Jerry Bruckheimer in the production of ‘Prince of Persia: Sands of Time’ where he was cast for the role of Prince Dastan. Just like with Bruckheimer productions coupled with Gyllenhaal’s talent in front of the cameras, the film became a major hit in the box office and grossed millions of dollars.
Other film roles by the actor include ‘Jarhead’, ‘Zodiac’, ‘Moonlight’, ‘Highway’, ‘Love and Drugs’ as well as ‘Source Code’ which is set to premiere in 2011.
Gyllenhaal is a female favourite and has been voted on many occasions as one of the sexiest men in entertainment today. In 2006 he was voted one of the sexiest men alive and also one of the sexiest bachelors of the year. Despite being a sex symbol to many women there have been rumours of him being bisexual especially after the role in Brokeback Mountain, none of these rumours have been confirmed.
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