Jake Gyllenhaal: ‘They just didn’t have the balls’ on His Biggest Issue With The Day After Tomorrow

SUMMARY

• Jake Gyllenhaal expressed dissatisfaction with The Day After Tomorrow's dialogue, refusing to say certain lines.
• He attributed his criticism to his family background in screenwriting and filmmaking.
• Gyllenhaal also struggled with the film's writing, finding it challenging to add depth to scenes with little sub-text.

Out of all the big-budget blockbusters Jake Gyllenhaal has landed in his career, the 2004 sci-fi-action piece The Day After Tomorrow most certainly wasn’t one. Although it more or less received some fans’ appreciation, a majority of the critics were still as displeased by it as ever, even though it managed to become a considerable commercial success.

Jake Gyllenhaal. | Credits: Siebbi/CCA-3.0/Wikimedia Commons

Gyllenhaal, on the other hand, was rather disgruntled with the piece himself. While it was one of his initial experiences working on a big-budget project, the actor had quite a few issues with it. As he didn’t hesitate to let known to everyone, one of his biggest problems was his dialogue for the film, which he had a hard time translating to the screens.

Jake Gyllenhaal was Brutally Critical of The Day After Tomorrow‘s Dialogue

Even though it was one of his initial big-budget projects, Jake Gyllenhaal was as unhesitantly critical about multiple aspects of The Day After Tomorrow as ever. That said, when the dialogue of the piece didn’t sit well with him and he found himself having a hard time adjusting to the movie’s writing and translating his dialogue to the big screen, he let it known.

The Day After Tomorrow. | Credits: 20th Century Studios.

As per Contact Music, he let the same known while sharing his distaste for the dialogue. The Donny Darko star said:

There were a couple of instances where I said, ‘No way am I saying that line!’ And they rewrote it. There won’t be any subtitle saying, ‘Sorry, these guys don’t sound like real human beings, but they just didn’t have the balls to say the dialogue sucked.’

Apparently, this unfondness of the dialogue stemmed from Gyllenhaal’s history with his family, considering how, before him, his family was already a part of the showbiz. For those who may not know, the 43-year-old is the son of filmmaker (cum poet) Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter cum director Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. That said, we might as well say it runs in the family.

Gyllenhaal. | Credits: The Day After Tomorrow/20th Century Studios.

The Road House actor himself pointed this factor out, saying (via Contact Music):

Coming from a family where my mom is a writer, I just respond to how people speak. I thrive on the process of getting this stuff right. It drove them crazy, but it was fun. You have to entertain yourself when you’re spending seven months in Montreal.

Well, Gyllenhaal’s roots in the entertainment industry most certainly seem to have contributed significantly to the way he tames his work, so no wonder that he made his thoughts known when the dialogue of the sci-fi-action piece sucked. But that wasn’t the only problem the Prisoners star faced in the movie, since he faced an even greater challenge adjusting to the script.

Jake Gyllenhaal Found it Hard to Adjust to the Film’s Writing As Well

Gyllenhaal. | Credits: The Day After Tomorrow/20th Century Studios.

In another interview with Black Film, Jake Gyllenhaal pointed out how Roland Emmerich‘s 2004 film wasn’t big on character development. That’s not all, for quite a few of the scenes, very little sub-text was provided – something he found pretty difficult to tackle. Sharing how “really hard” he found it all, the Brokeback Mountain star went on to say:

“The most challenging thing for me was making scenes that I think have very little sub-text have some reality to them. You have to get so much information in such a short period of time. Making something feel like you’re actually saying it and it’s not some plot device was really hard for me.”

Understandably enough, it makes sense Gyllenhaal found it hard to work on this particular project, considering how he had more than one problem with the way things were tamed in it.

Nonetheless, the big names connected to the piece, including Dennis Quaid and Emmy Rossum, must have helped the film succeed commercially since it managed to bring in a fair $552.6 million on a $125 million (via Box Office Mojo), even though the critical and general ratings more or less sucked (see Rotten Tomatoes).

The Day After Tomorrow can currently be streamed on Prime Video.

Written by Mahin Sultan

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