Despite his pedigree as a child of show biz with screenwriter and director parents and a Golden Globe- nominated actress for a sister Jake Gyllenhaal earned his spot as one of Hollywoods top 20-something males purely through his own acting merits. The liberal, politically active household did, however, foster an intelligence and sensitivity which were tailor made for independent films. As a teenager, Gyllenhaal lent a subtle, soulful sense of the complications of youth to a number of acclaimed art house titles including Donnie Darko (2001), with his deep-set eyes and quiet, dangerous type often earning him the brooding descriptor. As he matured into his twenties, Gyllenhaal was increasingly in demand by a wider range of directors, bringing his predilection for controversial subject matter and his instinctive, thoughtful acting style to larger films including Brokeback Mountain (2005), for which the 25-year-old actor was recognized with an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting actor.
Jake Gyllenhaal was born on Dec. 19, 1980 to childrens television producer-turned-screenwriter Naomi Foner (Running on Empty, 1988; Losing Isaiah, 1995), and published poet and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal (Losing Isaiah, 1995; Homegrown, 1998). Gyllenhaal and older sister Maggie grew up in Los Angeles and thrived in the intellectual, arts-oriented environment their parents created. He was acting by age 11, appearing on the big screen in a brief turn as Mitchs (Billy Crystal) son in "City Slickers (1991) and in the little-seen kid's adventure "Josh and S.A.M." (1993), as a mean step-brother to the title characters. The 1993 film "A Dangerous Woman," penned by mom and directed by dad, turned into a family affair, with the casting of brother and sister in supporting roles. As a teenager, Gyllenhaal attended the prestigious Harvard-Westlake private school in Los Angeles, but his parents were determined to keep their Hollywood kids firmly grounded, mandating they take on normal summer jobs and celebrating Gyllenhaals bar mitzvah with a day of service at a homeless shelter. Gyllenhaal augmented his paychecks as lifeguard and busboy with occasional TV appearances, including a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC, 1993-99) and by gigging around Hollywood as a singer with a band called Holeshot.
In 1998, Gyllenhaal appeared as a hippie son in the indie pot comedy, Homegrown, but gave a truly break-out leading performance in the feel-good favorite "October Sky, based on the real life story of NASA engineer Homer Hickam Jr. Compelling and sincere without teetering into sentimentality, Gyllenhaal announced his arrival as a bright new talent by playing Hickam, a boy interested in rocket science whose brilliant mind and staunch dedication wrote him a ticket out of a dead-end mining town. Following high school graduation later that year, Gyllenhaal began attending Columbia University in New York, where his mother had received a Masters Degree and his sister was enrolled. The spiritually-minded actor worked towards a degree in Eastern Religions and also concentrated on literature and poetry classes, but after a few years, he felt the pull to resume his promising film career.
He got the chance to solidify his status as an indie film actor with great depths in the Sundance-screened "Donnie Darko" (2001). Gyllenhaal was crucial to the artistic success of the indescribably odd time travel/psychological thriller about a high school teen haunted by garish nightmares and premonitions of the end of the world. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his lead, even though the film predictably sank quickly at the box office, rising in cult status only after its DVD release and addition to the midnight movie art house scene.
Gyllenhaals next outing, the drama "Highway," with Jared Leto and Selma Blair, came and went without much notice, while the offbeat comedy "Bubble Boy" (2001) was widely criticized. The missteps were hardly enough to ward off independent directors, and Gyllenhaal followed up with a strong supporting performance in Nicole Holofceners Lovely and Amazing (2001) before co-starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in Miguel Artetas "The Good Girl" (2002), a modern take on Madame Bovary, in which Gyllenhaal played the bookish, intriguing love interest of a bored cashier.
"Moonlight Mile" (2002) marked a career highpoint for the young actor, who shared the screen with such heavy-hitting thespians as Dustin Hoffman, Holly Hunter and Susan Sarandon, in the role of a young man whose fianc
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