The truth about Jake Gyllenhaal...

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Jake Gyllenhaal's new fim "Rendition" barely cracked the top 10 in its debut weekend. Getting even more attention is Jake's appearances at premieres and film fests in Europe with co-star Reese Witherspoon and interviews like this really interesting one that appears in the UK's Telegraph.
Here is the section of the piece that we want to know about, the part that dashes our wishful thinking:

I haven't asked who he is dating, but since he raised the subject, he did make some intriguingly ambiguous comments about his sexual orientation at the time Brokeback Mountain came out. A broad grin spreads across his face and he covers his head with his hands. 'I know, I know.' He is single at the moment. For several years he had an on-off affair with Kirsten Dunst. And yet?…
I quote something he said about homosexuality: 'I don't think I'd be afraid of it if it happened.' What on earth did he mean by that? 'Nothing like that has ever happened to me. I live in a different world. What I was trying to say was why leave out possibilities in my life? It wasn't meant to be provocative.'
So let's get it on the record: is he saying he is open to persuasion? 'No, I am not open to persuasion myself, but the idea of homosexuality is acceptable to me. I grew up in a city where half the people I know are gay. Both of my godfathers are gay.'
Paul Newman is gay! He laughs again. 'No, he's my celebrity godfather.' What's a celebrity godfather? 'That's the godfather that the media give you. He's a close friend of my family. He taught me to drive. I have literal godfathers and celebrity godfathers.'
I see. And Jamie Lee Curtis, is she a celebrity godmother or a literal godmother? 'Both. That's why it is confusing growing up in Hollywood.'
.jakeg3.jpgOK, having established that he is not bisexual, was he being quite calculating when he allowed people to think he was? 'It was meant as a way of saying it was important for Heath [Ledger, his co-star in Brokeback Mountain] and I to have the movie exist as the movie, but also to have people know it was two straight actors playing those parts.'
I think I follow. The chemistry and tension wouldn't have worked as well if two gay actors had been playing those roles, and because they were both straight it made their sexual awkwardness more convincing, more like it might be for two cowboys. 'Exactly. Here are these two lonely people who find themselves through love. Love has no bounds and these two people found a connection in this massive, lonely landscape of Wyoming.'
Presumably he got nasty letters from homophobes.
'Determining what was nasty and what was nice was always going to be hard for me with that movie. But yes, I got an insight into homophobia that I wouldn't normally have encountered.'

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Greg Hernandez authored Out In Hollywood for the Daily News from June 2006 to February 2009. He can now be found at Greg In Hollywood: www.greginhollywood.com

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This page contains a single entry by Greg Hernandez published on October 22, 2007 8:35 AM.

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