Jake Gyllenhaal reveals how being legally blind has impacted acting career

Jake Gyllenhaal has said being legally blind has been “advantageous” to his acting career.

The Donnie Darko star, 43, has been wearing corrective lenses since he was a young child and was born with a lazy eye that naturally resolved.

He is still legally blind with 20/1250 vision, but he said he does not think it has hindered his career.

He told trade publication The Hollywood Reporter: “I like to think it’s advantageous.

“I’ve never known anything else. When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself.”

He added he has even used his blindness as a tool for his performance, including when he was shooting a difficult scene in the 2015 boxing movie Southpaw, in which police tell his character that his wife has died.

He said he removed his contacts to force himself to listen more closely.

Gyllenhaal most recently starred in the remake of the classic 1980s film Road House and will also feature in an upcoming sequel, and he said it was a welcome reprieve from more intense roles, which include Brokeback Mountain, Prisoners and Nightcrawler.

He said: “There are movies I’ve made that people have said to me, ‘Man, intense. That was great. It was tough’.

“There have been many different times where I’m like, wait, what’s it like to make a movie and be like, ‘That was just fun?’. Road House was definitely that.”