Gyllenhaal on an ‘elaborately flavoured’ chewing gum diet for ‘Nightcrawler’

By Andrea Baillie, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Losing some 30 pounds to play a deranged paparazzo in the upcoming film “Nightcrawler” apparently didn’t do much for Jake Gyllenhaal’s mood.

At the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, co-star Riz Ahmed said Gyllenhaal basically subsisted on chewing gum and tea, which made him grumpy while shooting the moody movie, which also features Rene Russo as a tough-talking TV producer.

“He’d have a bowl of luxury chewing (gums) and they were, like, really elaborately flavoured, to trick his brain into thinking he was having a meal. So he was on his exercise bike having chewing gum and, like, almond tea with one calorie,” said Ahmed.

“When he started to do it I was a bit baffled … but now having seen the film and going through the process I realize that’s quite an ingenious way into the character, to manifest the hunger and desperation in that character physically.”

Ahmed — who plays an assistant hired by Gyllenhaal’s character — said the “Brokeback Mountain” star was apologetic about his sour demeanour.

“He was aware of it so he was like: ‘Sorry I’m grumpy, I haven’t eaten.'”

Gyllenhaal, who is set to start shooting “Demolition” next week with Canuck director Jean-Marc Vallee, said the extreme diet — and the Los Angeles night shoots that give “Nightcrawler” its “Taxi Driver”-esque look — altered his perspective.

“I had decided that I wanted the character to be hungry in more ways than one — figuratively and literally speaking. … I wanted to feel like a wild animal, kind of hungry all the time,” he said Saturday in an interview. “We were up all night and sort of sleep deprived and I think that definitely has an effect on your state of mind.”

Added Ahmed, who plays an assistant hired by Gyllenhaal’s character: “It was intense man, it was really intense. I mean it was like claustrophobic, filming in a car, night shoots the whole time. After six weeks of not seeing daylight you feel quite strange.”

Russo, whose husband Dan Gilroy wrote and directed the film, which is due for release Oct. 31, said she became concerned about the marathon runs Gyllenhaal endured to ward off weight gain.

“He was struggling, he really was. He was HUNGRY,” she said. “It was hard for him, it was really hard for him. I remember one time he went running and I was like: ‘Where’d you run?’ and he goes ‘I got really faint, I was running into Mulholland (canyon),’ and … I said Jake you can’t do that, that’s like dangerous. So I think he got to a place where he could have been in trouble.”

Gilroy said he was on board immediately when Gyllenhaal told him he wanted to drop the weight — but that the results were a tad alarming.

“I loved it,” he said. “In order to keep the weight down he would ride or run 10-15 miles to the set. Why, I don’t know. And then he would eat kale. And then he would work for 15 hours. And I didn’t know how he was sustaining himself and getting through. But he kept to it. Every night he would come in (and say): ‘Do you think I look fat?’. … I had people coming up to me who were above me saying: ‘He cannot lose another pound’ … because it just was so frightening.”

The Toronto International Film Festival runs until Sept. 14.

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