Jake Gyllenhaal Accused of Erratic Behavior on Movie Set: ‘He Explodes With Rage’
Jake Gyllenhaal‘s behind-the-scenes antics surprise and exasperate a writer-director on the set of a failed $26-million film. In a recent article from the French magazine Technikart, Thomas Bidegain recounts the dissolution of the first version of his movie Soudain seuls (a.k.a. Suddenly Alone) and the wildly unpredictable behavior of Gyllenhaal, its star.
After completing the first version of the film’s screenplay in English, then a second version just before the pandemic, in March 2020, Bidegain was contacted by the Brokeback Mountain star, who asked him to co-write Alexander Payne’s next screenplay. Bidegain, who had already begun thinking about casting the film (then known as just Suddenly), sent him the script.
“He finds the scenario wonderful, touching,” and for more than a year, the script was revised and polished for the actor, who was “extremely” involved in the project, so much so that he became co-producer. The film, in search of its second and final actor, adds Vanessa Kirby, Gyllenhaal’s co-star in the 2015 movie Everest, to its cast.
Bidegain then flew to Iceland in July 2021 to meet with Kirby and Gyllenhaal to read the script together, eight weeks before filming began. Despite COVID-19 rates being extremely low in Iceland, Gyllenhaal refused to fly to Reykjavik on his first day and drove to the hotel — demanding a car that is “neither red nor white.”
After a six-hour drive along with revered screenwriter and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, who is polishing the English dialogue, Gyllenhaal is described in the piece as “distant” chooses not to ever take off his face mask. He then “summoned” Thomas and launched into a long monologue: “Everyone in this room is extremely talented, but we’re going to have to work. And keep an open mind. With David, we considered many changes…” The star also says vague things like, “We have to find the truth.”
Gyllenhaal lost his temper on the second day because he didn’t know whether the appointment was at 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m. After that, the actors are taken to the set, a black sand beach where a whaling base will be built.
However, the Donnie Darko actor seems unimpressed. According to Bidegain, the actor didn’t think the mountains were high enough and the present nature wasn’t threatening enough. Together with Valentine Monteil, Thomas took the script and rewrote scenes on the boat, with Gyllenhaal insisting on heavy alterations.
“For him, there is no need for a whaling station, no shelter, everything is too comfortable, we don’t feel the danger!” Bidegain recalled to Technikart, adding “I had already argued with directors, but never with such intensity. But I remain convinced that things will work out.”
Monteil was less certain. Things continued to disintegrate, with the Nightcrawler star insisting his character be a former GI with survival skills. He also pushes to add a scene where he slaps a fish. He also is said to keeping repating the mantra that the team has to find “the truth.”
Despite exuding such intensity, Gyllenhaal sends Bidegain a text message after an argument, during which he threatens to leave the project, writing, “I adore you.”
On the morning of the third day, Gyllenhaal walks alone in nature and encounters a mare. Afterward, in the writing room, he discusses the communion he felt with nature and suggests the film be centered around this theme: the love of nature. “He soon put a speech by Greta Thunberg on his computer, with rock music in the background,” Bidegain recalls. It lasts a quarter of an hour.” He lets himself cry while listening and reminisces about his emotions. “I’m crying, I’m crying, it’s real tears!”
“It was the biggest laugh of my life,” Monteil told the outlet. “Jake tells us that this is not a film about love, but a film about the love of nature. He declares that everything must be rewritten, all declarations of love must be declarations to nature. I see Thomas saying to himself that he is losing his 26 million. He then leans towards me and says: ‘How do you say get f— in Iceland? Because that’s exactly what just happened…”‘
On the fourth day, Bidegain decides to take everyone to see the beautiful scenery that appears in the film. Gyllenhaal chooses to swim in his underwear in the three-degree Atlantic Ocean. “‘When I see the sea, I swim in the sea.’ Quite exhilarated, Jake Gyllenhaal undresses and, in front of a stunned technical team, goes to swim in the icy waters of the Icelandic coast.”
Nevertheless, after dinner, Gyllenhaal “goes into a tailspin” and confronts Bidegain again, reaffirming the truth, and the deep meaning of the film. After learning that the builders of the whaling base will arrive the following day at the hotel, he “explodes with rage.”
Gyllenhaal says they must sleep in their cars because he is afraid of COVID. He starts screaming, insisting that he does not want a set, demanding building plans, calling everyone incompetent, and declaring that he will leave if this is the case. Bidegain eventually tells him, “Go ahead!”
Bidegain informs producer Alain Attal of what happened the previous day, but it was deemed too much, so Attal pulls the plug.”I’m going to talk to Jake and we agree that there’s no point in persisting, our visions diverge too much,” Bidegain said. “We won’t be able to shoot in September. I’m going for a walk with Valentine on a glacier. I phone the financiers, my American friends who tell me new things about Jake. With him, maybe I wasn’t firm enough, I think he wanted a stronger confrontation, but I don’t work like that… Anyway, it’s all over, and the 26 million s’ fly away!”
Several weeks after all prospects for the film have evaporated, Kirby contacted Bidegain and offered to buy the script to do it with Gyllenhall — but without Bidegain. However, he decided against that and made the movie without the Hollywood stars.
Bidegain said, “I talk to Alain Attal about it and suggest selling it to them. He answers me: ‘Never in life, we’re pissing them off, you’re going to rewrite it in French and we’re going to shoot it with great French actors.'” As a result, over two years later, Suddenly Alone (Soudain seuls) with Gilles Lellouche and Mélanie Laurent was finally released in December.
