Jake Gyllenhaal Workout Routine for Prince of Persia
I was so curious to find out about Jake Gyllenhaal’s workout routine for the “Prince of Persia” movie. starring Jake Gyllenhaal. The comes to cinemas this week. When I watched the trailer for the movie, I can’t help but notice that his appearance has improved tremendously. Therefore, I set out to research what he did look like the Warrior Prince h e’s portraying.
A Little Bit Of History on Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake has really made great strides in his acting career. With dad and mom both in the film business, his dad is a movie director while his mother is a produce/screenwriter, it’s not surprising that Jake has been appearing in movies since he was 11. But, my original exposure to his acting was in Donnie Darko which was released in 2001. The film was about a disturbed teenager who had visions of a enormous bunny rabbit encouraging him to commit crimes. Even if this movie was obviously a little on the bizarre side, it obtained a cult-like following when it was released on DVD. Of course, I wouldn’t do Jake any justice if I didn’t speak about “Brokeback Mountain” where Jake plays a gay farmhand who becomes romantically involved with Heath Ledger’s character. Surprisingly, I watched this movie with my two, male college roommates who were into film arts of all sorts. Yes, they totally date women. But, I digress.
Probably the best Jake movies is “Jarhead” which was released in 2005. This movie made me pay attention of him primarily because he filled out his Marine uniform very well in addition to his acting skills…haha. Judging from his figure back then which you’ll see from some pictures taken in between takes in Jarhead, he must have gained 15-20 lbs of muscle in preparation for Prince of Persia.
On a rather more serious note, Jake certainly did go all out when it comes to physically preparing for his role as the Prince of Persia. This movie took it’s origin from a Ubisoft video game of the same title and also includes a warrior prince who, together with his princess, fight against dark forces that are after a dagger that is capable of turning back time. This movie was developed by Disney this means we can expect some incredible effects. When Jake talked about 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 sure that it’s not coincidence that Ubisoft is making a sequel to “The Sands of Time” which is the first Prince of Persia game. The follow up is entitled “The Forgotten Sands.”
A clip for this game ultimately take me straight to when I used to sit back and watch my brothers play their role playing games(RPG) like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. It amazes me how true to life these trailers look in today’s times.
The Role of Prince of Persia
In 2009, Jake started training with Simon Waterson to transform him self into the “warrior” that he needs to appear like in this movie. Waterson, who is a fitness instructor to the stars and also a ex- Royal Marine, is responsible for coaching the lead actors for the previous five 007 movies, among them Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan. Whenever 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 get ready for his stunt moves. In case you haven’t heard or seen of Parkour in the past, it is simply people jumping or running from building to building or even from various physical outdoor structures. Since he required a lot of relative power to lift up his body and accomplish his stunts, this kind of exercises was the best choice.
Whenever Gyllenhaal was asked about his stunt training at Wondercon, an annual comic book, science fiction, film convention in San Francisco, he replied, “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 two to three times a day along with Parkour for four months to accomplish his warrior-like body. If you’re able to see from his photograph from Prince of Persia, Gyllenhaal does not appear as toned as Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 2 but this is most likely intended. He had to achieve the comfortable appearance instead of made to appear a particular way with a gym work out. Of course, suitable nutrition also makes a contribution to developing his tough appearance.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 at 4:05 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.