The legend of Jake GyllenBaller.

An indie movie ‘SUDDENLY’ fell apart after Jake Gyllenhaal showed erratic behavior, including:

• Stripping to his underwear & diving into the freezing ocean, saying “when I see the sea, I swim in the sea”
• Constant script rewrite demands
• Doing his rehearsal in a Pepe Le… pic.twitter.com/8DiOwC55kQ

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 31, 2024

It was when Gyllenhaal – who'd also signed on as producer for the $26m film – arrived in Iceland that things began to go awry. Technikart's report – which includes extensive quotes from Bidegain – describes some distinctly erratic behaviour from Gyllenhaal, including demands that the script be rewritten to a curious moment in which he stripped down to his underwear and jumped in the freezing cold sea in front of the whole crew.

The magazine even has a candid photograph, appearing to show Gyllenhaal wading into the icy waters. “When I see the sea, I swim in the sea,” the star reportedly said.

Other curious moments described in the feature include Gyllenhaal specifying what colour his hire car should be (“neither red nor white”), Gyllenhaal and Kirby reading the script aloud in mock French accents like Pepe Le Pew, and Gyllenhaal arguing that the script should be rewritten to make his character an ex-soldier.

“For a scene on a boat, [Gyllenhaal] sells us the idea that he slaps a fish,” one passage reads.

Eventually, matters came to a head on day four of the project, with Gyllenhaal still demanding changes to the script and even – allegedly – saying that the production's set builders had to sleep in their cars in order to prevent the spread of Covid. When producer Alain Attal dug his heels in and refused to change the script, the entire project fell apart.

https://filmstories.co.uk/news/suddenly-the-jake-gyllenhaal-movie-that-fell-apart-in-four-days

!tmz