Jake Gyllenhaal on life lessons in boxing after doing ‘Southpaw’
LOS ANGELES – Jake Gyllenhaal met with us recently to talk about “Southpaw,” a film where he plays a boxer. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and also starring Rachel McAdams (Maureen Hope), Forest Whitaker (Titus “Tick” Wills), Oona Laurence (Leila Hope) and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (as Jordan Mains), the film not only deals with the ups and down in the life of an athlete but also the fickle nature of fame and how it affects the athlete, his family, friends and loved ones.
Jake revealed that he watched the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight as part of his preparation for the role.
He shared, “Antoine wanted me to go to every fight that I could possibly go to for the seven months that we were in pre-production. So, initially, I went to watch Mayweather’s fights. Then, I went to watch Manny Pacquiao’s fights.”
That said, his biggest influence in portraying Billy Hope is one time Pacquiao nemesis, Miguel Cotto.
He related, “I just love how he approaches his work and how he always has his family around him. He is also somebody who was humbled by his losses including the one with Pacquiao. Freddie Roach, who was training Manny Pacquiao, said, ‘I see all of Cotto’s faults and we are going to beat him because of this.’ Cotto, after losing to Pacquiao, realized that Freddie was right and then asked Freddie to train him, very much like Billy does in the movie. So Cotto was a big influence on me.”
Asked if there was one style of fighting that he likes, Jake mentioned the style of Mayweather.
He explained, “Billy started off as a purely offensive fighter until, eventually, he learned defense. Floyd Mayweather and his defensive style was a huge influence on my portrayal of Billy in the movie. There was a point actually where boxer Roy Jones Jr. said something while he was commenting and he was like, ‘Whoa, is that a white guy trying to do Floyd Mayweather? He’s like a man trying to pole dance!’ Something like that. It’s not in the movie but yeah, I would say that Floyd is a huge influence.”
So what does he think is his greatest strength?
Jake paused for a while and said, “Like Sugar Ray, what made him great was not just his skill but sensitivity. I had the honor of meeting him when Antoine and I went to the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight and sat nearby him and we talked for a while. He was talking about the moment when you are sitting on that stool and everything in your brain is telling you that you can’t get up but your soul is telling you to get up, and so, you get up. That is what makes a great boxer. I also think that’s why the metaphor of boxing is so relatable to many people in the world. My greatest strength is that I am able to realize that. I have the ability to self-reflect.”
Going back to the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, we asked Jake if he was disappointed about it given the hype and the money behind it and he said, “Some part of me wished there was more of an initiative for them.”
He added, “Like, somebody would come out and tell them, ‘You are making this much money but if you knock each other out, you get more money.’ It would probably be a different situation. Maybe we would have seen a different fight. But it’s a business and that is sometimes the unfortunate part about it. We have come a long way since Ali-Frazier, where it felt like there was something more behind a fight, like a different story. Commerce definitely is ruling but not to take away the fact that the two of them have been through a hell of a lot and Manny Pacquiao has come from living in a shack in the middle of nowhere to being where he is. But it is to say that that fight was an interesting representation of where we are now. I am not going to say and I have no right to say that neither of them had as much will but I will tell you this, you compare that fight to Ali-Frazier and you go, ‘Where have we come?’ But you pay a lot in pay-per-view.”
So does he think he can be very violent or very peaceful? “I think I am both,” he honestly replied. “I think I can be both. I do have violence in me and I also feel great calm. I feel like I have the capability of loving as well. So I think I am a little of both.
“And I think the reason I wanted to play this part was because Billy is so full of rage at the beginning of the movie. The story is essentially about a guy who is full of rage and his rage is what has brought him all of his success. Then he has to learn to ultimately fight with anger that can be motivating but without hatred. That is the evolution and that is what I wanted to explore myself.”