
Photograph: © CRYSTAL, PacificCoastNews.
Today’s #QueerQuote might give hope to all those guys who have been crushing on Gyllenhaal for the past two decades. The full quote reads:
”You know it’s flattering when there’s a rumor that says I’m bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I’m open to whatever people want to call me. I’ve never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don’t think I would be afraid of it if it happened.”
He is one of our finest and busiest actors. Gyllenhaal started his career as a kid, rising to fame while still in his teens, and taking on roles loaded with inner turmoil: the troubled, rabbit-hallucinating teenager in Donnie Darko (2002); yearning, repressed gay sheep-herder Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain (2005); Louis Bloom, the photographer who records violent events late at night in Los Angeles, and sells the footage to a local television news station in Nightcrawler (2014).
In Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young sheep herder dudes who start a love affair that begins in the summer of 1963 and lasts for 20 years. The film won the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Film Festival, plus four Golden Globe Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Academy Awards. Gyllenhaal was nominated for an Oscar and a SAG Award for his performance. Gyllenhaal won the BAFTA for the role. he and Ledger won an MTV Movie Award for “Best Kiss” in 2006.
Last year, Gyllenhaal appeared on Broadway in the great Stephen Sondheim / James Lapine musical Sunday In The Park With George, revealing a rich, expressive singing voice.
Always busy, he appeared in three films in 2017: the demented, but touching Okja directed by Bong Joon-ho with Tilda Swinton; Stronger a biographical drama film about Jeff Bauman who lost his legs in the Boston Marathon bombing; Life a sci-fi horror flick about being stranded in space with Ryan Reynolds.
Coming this year: Wildlife, directed by Paul Dano and starring Carey Mulligan; The Sisters Brothers, a dark western comedy with John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix; and Velvet Buzzsaw, a horror thriller film with Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, and John Malkovich, to be released by Netflix.