Everyone is human, including Hollywood actors and actresses. Sure, they have made it to arguably the most luxurious industry in the whole world, usually look great, and make tons of money off each project. However, they also have their personal struggles, including Jake Gyllenhaal.
Throughout his career, the 43-year-old starred in numerous acclaimed movies, becoming one of the most well-known actors in the modern world. The list of films he starred in includes hits like Nightcrawler, Southpaw, Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain or Zodiac, to name a few. In, we presume, each of them, Gyllenhaal not only acted his socks off, but also wore glasses or contact lenses. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t see a thing.
How long has Jake Gyllenhaal been legally blind?
It turns out you can be punched like a boxer in Southpaw or fighting Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Far From Home while having an eyesight so bad you literally can’t see anything in front of you without your glasses. That’s what Jake Gyllenhaal has been doing.
Although it’s not something the actor has spoken too much about in public, Gyllenhaal is in fact legally blind. He wears glasses or lenses on a daily basis to improve his vision. And this isn’t a correction without which he could perform his daily tasks, since the actor has a 20/1250 vision, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Fortunately for himself, Gyllenhaal has learned to live with the vision issues he’s been having since he was a kid. He sees it as a trait that allows him to be by himself when needed. “I like to think it’s advantageous. I’ve never known anything else. When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself,” Gyllenhaal told THR.
His not-so-perfect vision has also helped the Road House lead to perform certain roles. For example, he revealed that in Southpaw, when a police officer tells his character about a certain tragedy that had happened in his family, Gyllenhaal had his lenses taken off. He did so to “listen more closely” and have the scene be more immersive.
Unfortunately, it was also a root of a few issues in the actor’s upbringing. In 2017’s interview with The Telegraph, Gyllenhaal admitted his corrective glasses as a kid made him an “easy target” for bullies.
What does being a legally blind person mean?
For those who are unaware, legal blindness is when your vision is 20/200 or less. That means if an object is 200 feet away, you’d have to standing 20 feet away from it to see it clearly. Whereas, people with regular vision could be standing 200 feet away and see it without any issues.
With that in mind, Gyllenhaal’s 20/1250 vision is a significant level of sight loss, as losing your glasses or lenses in the public basically means you’re losing your sight if you don’t have spare ones. Even so, Gyllenhaal has overcome the drawbacks it caused him in childhood and has embraced his legal blindness as an advantage.