Jake Gyllenhaal is ripped and rough looking.
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Director Antoine Fuqua wanted him (Gyllenhaal) to convincingly play a light heavyweight boxer. A sneak peek at a smartphone photo shows Mr. Gyllenhaal has transformed himself.
The hair is short. The blood and ink are fake. But the abs are real and impressive. Very.
“He looks like a fighter. He’s got tattoos. He’s got everything. He’s got the eyes kind of messed up, the nose is different. Oh, yeah, he looks rough. He looks tough,” Mr. Fuqua, a Pittsburgh native, said recently over coffee in the lobby of the Fairmont Pittsburgh hotel, Downtown.
“I really wanted him to be a fighter. Right now, he’s been boxing so much, he’s in that mentality,” the director said of the actor who has portrayed cops, a military helicopter pilot with eight minutes to stop a bomb blast, a sixth-century prince of Persia, a newspaper cartoonist, a Marine and a heartsick cowboy.
“I had him sparring. We had Victor Ortiz, the real fighter. He’s in the movie. I had him here as well and they sparred, and Victor taught him some things, and Coach Terry [Claybon] from LA, who trains with me and Denzel (Washington), I brought him out. Other fighters were here, as well.”
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In the meantime, though, there is the deadline for “Southpaw,” which The Weinstein Co.
could release as early as December, although no date has been announced.
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The drama, written by Kurt Sutter (“Sons of Anarchy”), is about a champion boxer who loses everything after a death and goes into a downward spiral. The boxing, violence and language are expected to earn an R rating.
“Ultimately, the story’s about a father and daughter coming to terms with mourning and coming to terms with, ‘Who’s the parent?’ Learning how to be a parent, learning how to be a father, in particular,” Mr. Fuqua said.
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“This movie is forcing this man to learn how to be a dad and learn how to control his anger. In the boxing world, of course, it’s OK to be angry and be on the edge and be violent because you get paid for it. In the real world, you can’t go around punching people; it affects everyone.” Billy’s anger and rage as a fighter will destroy him or the most precious part of his life — his daughter — if he cannot tame his temper.
Mr. Fuqua, 48, has been boxing since his days in Pittsburgh and turned his suburban office here into a temporary communal gym, and Mr. Gyllenhaal, no stranger to workouts, as proven by “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and “Jarhead,” embarked on rigorous training.
“Four months, twice a day, in the boxing gym. Every day, sometimes on Sundays, and he completely committed. In fact, that’s where I interviewed him,” the filmmaker recalled.
“Harvey Weinstein called me and said, ‘Well, you guys should meet.’ I said, ‘Well, let me see if he can throw a punch,’ ” the director recalled.