I was so curious to find out about Jake Gyllenhaal’s workout routine for the “Prince of Persia” movie. starring Jake Gyllenhaal. The arrives to theaters this week. As I watched the trailer for the movie, I can’t help but discover that his body has evolved greatly. Therefore, I set out to study exactly what he did look like the Warrior Prince h e’s portraying.
A Little History on Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake has really come a long way in his acting career. With mom and dad both in the motion picture industry, his dad is a movie director while his mother is a produce/screenwriter, it’s no surprise that Jake has been acting in films since he was 11. But, my original exposure to his acting was in Donnie Darko which came out in 2001. The film involved a disturbed teen who experienced visions of a colossal bunny rabbit motivating him to commit crimes. Even though this movie was a little on the weird side, it received a cult-like following when it was released on DVD. Of course, I wouldn’t do Jake any kind of justice if I didn’t mention “Brokeback Mountain” where Jake plays a gay farmhand who becomes romantically involved with Heath Ledger’s character. Surprisingly, I viewed this movie along with my two, male college roommates who were into film arts of all sorts. Yes, they totally date women. But, I digress.
Undoubtedly one of my personal favorite Jake films is “Jarhead” which was released in 2005. This film made me pay attention of him merely because he filled out his Marine uniform nicely in addition to his acting skills…haha. Judging from his figure in those days which you can see from some photos taken in between takes in Jarhead, he must have gained 15-20 lbs of lean muscle mass when preparing for Prince of Persia.
On a much more serious note, Jake really did go all out in terms of physically preparing for his role as the Prince of Persia. This movie took it’s origin from a Ubisoft videogame of the same title and also includes a warrior prince who, regarding his princess, fight against dark forces who are after a dagger that is capable of turning back time. This movie was developed by Disney which means we should expect a lot of awesome effects. When Jake discussed his role in “Prince of Persia” with Entertainment Tonight he was quoted saying, “I over-prepared myself [physically] because I never knew how much they were going to ask me to do, so I just made sure I’d be hopefully able to do anything.”
I’m certain it’s not coincidence that Ubisoft is making a follow up to “The Sands of Time” which is the first Prince of Persia game. The follow up is entitled “The Forgotten Sands.”
A clip on this game ultimately take me straight to when I used to watch my brothers play their role playing games(RPG) like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. It is amazing to me how realistic these trailers look in todays world.
The Role of Prince of Persia
In 2009, Jake commenced training with Simon Waterson to turn himself into the “warrior” that he needs to look like for this movie. Waterson, who’s a fitness instructor to the stars plus a former Royal Marine, is responsible for coaching the lead characters for the previous five 007 motion pictures, among them Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan. When asked about Gyllenhaal’s training, Waterson responded, “There’s an increasing fusion between the worlds of fitness and film. Most actors are athletes nowadays. Their fitness is a big factor in whether they get cast or not,” he says. “Jake has to look like a warrior capable of sword-fighting, not like he’s been hitting the gym. He is working out twice, sometimes three times a day, six days a week, for three to four months on top of stunt rehearsals before filming begins.”
Jake underwent Parkour style exercising to prepare for his stunt moves. If you haven’t heard or seen of Parkour before, it is in essence people leaping or running from building to building or from a variety of physical outdoor buildings. Because he required a lot of relative power to lift his body and accomplish his stunts, this type of training was perfect.
When Gyllenhaal was asked about his stunt training at Wondercon, a yearly comic book, sci-fi, motion picture conference in San Francisco, he responded, “Well, I’m going to stress this – I tried everything, but I didn’t always succeed at everything. So what I didn’t succeed at, someone else had to pull it off. But it was difficult, but also really fun. I mean when you get parkour down, or the essential idea of parkour, it really is an extraordinary sport because there’s an ease to it and it ends up not feeling that hard.” He exercised 2 to 3 times a day as well as Parkour for four months to obtain his warrior-like body. If you can see from his photograph from Prince of Persia, Gyllenhaal isn’t going to look as cut as Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 2 however this is most likely planned. He had to have the natural appearance rather than forced to look a particular way with a gym work out. Of course, creative diet additionally is important in creating his strong appearance.