Incredibly, it’s been over 30 years since Jake Gyllenhaal made his screen debut in City Slickers, with the Academy Award nominee having since secured a reputation as one of the most dynamic and versatile talents of his generation.
However, the actor’s initial attempts at launching himself as a square-jawed action hero didn’t go so well, with 2010’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time finding itself panned by critics and facing widespread accusations of whitewashing, while it also disappointed at the box office despite becoming the highest-grossing video game adaptation ever made at the time.
After a decade in the wilderness, Gyllenhaal has returned to the spectacle-driven arena in a major way, with Michael Bay’s Ambulance arriving after Spider-Man: No Way Home, and before his upcoming untitled Guy Ritchie thriller, while he’s also got comic book blockbusters Oblivion Song and Prophet in the works.
Having turned his back on running and gunning for so long, it came as a surprise to hear the 41 year-old admit to People that he’d always fancied himself as the star of a Bay-driven blockbuster.
“I’ve always had this sort of dream since I was younger to be in a Michael Bay [movie], and it’s just fun to sort of play that out. To be in a city where I grew up, where you’re a kid thinking about cars and car chases and stuff like that and to be fulfilling that. Being an action star in a movie, it just allows for so much room for fun and joking and absurdity.”
Gyllenhaal finally got his wish, then, with the high-octane Ambulance winning the best reviews Bay has seen for years, so it’s beginning to look as though he picked exactly the right project to live out his long-held dream.