Jake Gyllenhaal has opened up about being temporary roommates with his brother-in-law Peter Sarsgaard, noting that he “cherished” the rare opportunity to spend time with him.
The Road House star plays a criminal lawyer facing murder charges in the new Apple+ thriller series Presumed Innocent.
Sarsgaard, who has been married to actor, filmmaker and Gyllenhaal’s older sister Maggie Gyllenhaal since 2009, also features in the drama as a prosecution lawyer.
For the filming of the intense series, Gyllenhaal, 43, and Sarsgaard, 53, spent the “majority” of their time living together – something that the Nightcrawler star remembers fondly.
“Most of the time, we both live in the same city but he’s with his family and I’m in my life and we see each other but we don’t live together, so it was a very special time in both of our lives that we got to really be like roommates,” Gyllenhaal told Sky News.
“It’s not a normal situation in that way, but man, did I cherish it and we got so much closer as a result of it.”
This project is not the first time that Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard have worked together closely; they also both starred in the 2005 war drama Jarhead.
Speaking about the chance to work with people he knows well on camera, Gyllenhaal noted that there is already a level of “honesty” between them, which means that they can achieve a more intimate connection between characters in a shorter length of time.
“In our case, with my brother-in-law and I, we’re really devoted to our work and acting and storytelling and stuff so I think we also understand it as a craft, so we can kind of bring stuff from our relationship into scenes that are true in a fictional space, and we have great fun doing it,” he explained.
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“And then we can go home and we can have a beer and we can laugh and enjoy it.”
Earlier this month, the Academy Award-nominated actor shared some insight into his years living with a visual impairment, having been born with a lazy eye that gradually resolved itself, and wearing corrective lenses since the age of six.
He admitted that he thinks of it as being “advantageous” for his career and revealed he sometimes intentionally removes his lenses on film sets if he has to shoot a particularly difficult scene.
Gyllenhaal told The Hollywood Reporter of his 20/1250 vision: “When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself.”
