Spider-Man: Far From Home star Jake Gyllenhaal has had a long and eventful career so far, but one of the roles that cemented his place among the Hollywood elite (as well as snagged him an Oscar nomination) was none other than that of Jack Twist in 2005's Brokeback Mountain.
In a new video interview with GQ, Jake reminisces about his iconic role in the groundbreaking, queer-themed film and talks about the impact it still has to this very day.
"To make a movie that even just works is a miracle," he said. "When it resonates even beyond that, it’s impossible. And it has nothing to do with you in the end. Just being in Brokeback Mountain, that’s the feeling I have. I feel that deeply about it. It had nothing to do with me. It came to me, I was honored to be a part of it, and it is now everyone else’s in a way that I can’t even fathom."
Also starring the late Heath Ledger as well as fellow acting icons Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain was directed by Ang Lee (who won an Academy Award for Best Directing for the film) and tells the emotional, heartbreaking love story of two working-class men in the American West from the '60s to the '80s.
"I think we had been cast for our "essences" without really understanding what our "essences" were, and that’s outside of our sexuality. We’re two straight guys cast in these roles, but who we are, who we were, Ang could see. And I don’t know if I could," he said about how he was cast for one of his most memorable roles. "So when the movie had the response that it had, I think all of us who had been cast...I don’t think we recognized what Ang had seen in us, so we were wandering around blind at the profundity and the echo the movie made.We understood the power of the story, but I think playing a character in it, we didn't fully, and I don’t think we ever had any idea it would have the impact that it had."
Watch Jake break down the story behind Jack Twist and more of his most memorable film roles in the video below. And watch him make his MCU debut in Spider-Man: Far From Home when it hits theaters on July 2!
