INTEVIEW

Jake Gyllenhaal confesses he felt “trapped” whilst filming’The Guilty’ for netflix as he was forced to sit on a chair throughout filming

40-year-old star features in Antoine Fuqua’s crime thriller but was forced to sit in a chair throughout the project, which was shot in just 11 days

Jake, who plays the role of 911 call operator Joe Bayler in the movie said: “It was 20 pages a day shooting 20-30 minute takes. And I thrive in that space, but I was trapped in a chair. Antoine trapped me in a chair.

“Every time I wanted to move, I’m a very physical person, a very full-bodied actor, and to only be a chair and having to express ended up doing a number on me as we got farther and farther into the story.

“Stillness is one thing, but then being trapped is another thing, and it brought out a lot of feelings in me and reveals a lot about this character too.”

The movie see’s a demoted police officer assigned to a call dispatch desk is conflicted when he receives an emergency phone call from a kidnapped woman.

Jake had to hear lines delivered by other cast members over Zoom and explained how the cast had to get their timing right to make sure they didn’t talk over each other.

The ‘Brokeback Mountain, Zodiac, and Nightcrawler’ Hollywood star said: “Let’s say you’re on a huge Zoom in front of a lot of people you can’t see. There are three cameras shooting you, and over the course of 11 days, the cameras that are shooting you start getting closer and closer and closer to your face.

“All the actors were on Zoom and the rhythm started to get set for us, and over a number of days we had to start our line even before the other one finished it, knowing that we were not going to hear the end of the line, but knowing that it would be recorded as if we were going to be interrupted… It was like you were in a partial gravity room trying to keep your feet on the ground.”

The Guilty is a remake of the 2018 Danish film of the same name, and it features the same basic premise. Gyllenhaal (who also produces the film) plays Sergeant Bill Miller, a Los Angeles police officer who has been assigned desk duty as a 911 operator for reasons that later become clear. The story takes place over the course of his final evening on duty, when he receives a call from a distressed woman who has been abducted and he works the phones to track her down before it’s too late.

The Guilty will be released on Netflix on September 24th