{"id":86191,"date":"2025-08-23T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T00:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/86191\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T00:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T00:01:08","slug":"the-five-songs-jake-gyllenhaal-just-couldnt-live-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/86191\/","title":{"rendered":"The five songs Jake Gyllenhaal just couldn’t live without"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jake<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Entertainment One)<\/p>\n

Fri 22 August 2025 20:15, UK <\/p>\n

Jake Gyllenhaal<\/a> is as fine an actor as his name is difficult to spell. That\u2019s a compliment, obviously. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s been putting in superb performance after superb performance since all the way back to creepy coming-of-age drama Donnie Darko in 2001, and shows no signs of stopping yet, even if you count the remake of Road House last year, which we won\u2019t, because it was needless.<\/p>\n

Some of his best films have even flown under the radar a little bit. We\u2019re talking about the likes of brilliant time-hopping thriller Source Code from 2011 and more recently the twin Denis Villeneuve-directed films that were both released in 2013, Prisoners opposite Hugh Jackman and the mind-bending Enemy, which has an ending that still gives us shuddery daytime nightmares. Daymares (just googled that, they\u2019re definitely a thing).<\/p>\n

Most people probably know Gyllenhaal best for his handsy cowboy performance in Ang Lee\u2019s Brokeback Mountain with the late Heath Ledger, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, but he was arguably even better two years later in the fantastic serial killer movie Zodiac with Robert Downey Jr.<\/p>\n

In fact, as I write this, I\u2019m realising just how many good films our friend Jake has been in that people might not know. There needs to be a Jake Gyllenhaal day at the cinema where you turn up, pay a tenner and get to watch maybe five in a row and at the end of which you will swear blind to anyone you speak to that \u201cJake Gyllenhaal is a generational actor\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now that we are sold on Gyllenhaal and his equally talented sister, for what it\u2019s worth, but what kind of music does he listen to in order to gear up for all these excellent performances? Well, he gave the answer to that in a chat with radio station KCRW during which he revealed a fondness for \u2018The Boss\u2019 alongside some lesser-known folk singers.<\/p>\n

Asked to pick his top five songs, Gyllenhaal led with Bruce Springsteen\u2019s classic \u2018The River\u2019<\/a> from the album of the same name back in 1980. The actor said, \u201cI think a lot of it has to do with its connection to my family, listening to Bruce Springsteen when I was a kid with my dad. My first concert I ever went to was the Born in the USA tour concert, and I remember being with my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, he cited the connection with his father again on another selection, Burt Ives\u2019 \u2018The Fox\u2019. Gyllenhaal recalled, \u201cMy father used to sing this to me\u2014and I love Burl Ives just as a character, just as a musician\u2014and when I was a little kid, we were robbed outside of our house. We were driving home, we pulled up, and we were robbed, and ever since, I was always really nervous about falling asleep, you know, naturally, and so my dad would sing this to me before I\u2019d go to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere the actor went with \u2018Inchworm\u2019 as performed by actor Danny Kaye in the 1952 movie Hans Christian Andersen, the instrumental piece \u2018Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso\u2019 by the French composer Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns, and finally, Loudon Wainwright III\u2019s \u2018A Father and a Son<\/a>\u2019, of which he said, \u201cAlthough it\u2019s called \u2018A Father and a Son\u2019, it was actually played for me by my mother first. Loudon Wainwright is extraordinary. [His son] Rufus is a friend of mine and I think he\u2019s extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gyllenhaal currently has plenty more projects in the works, including Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division, Road House 2 (why!) and horror movie The Bride with Christian Bale. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Entertainment One) Fri 22 August 2025 20:15, UK Jake Gyllenhaal is as fine an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[15738,6491,20147,96,35354,43429,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-86191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-celebrities","tag-denis-villeneuve","tag-entertainment","tag-jake-gyllenhaal","tag-loudon-wainwright-iii","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}