I liken movies to playing a piano: Sometimes you're playing the chords and different notes with unresolved cadences and playing all major chords that are all over the place, and you're enjoying yourself with a great, simple melody.
It's funny to me that people find other people getting coffee really interesting, or walking their dog in the dog park.
When I was young, before school, my father would wake me up and we would go running together. A love of being physical, being active and being outside was something he instilled in me.
The best thing that I got was rehearsing with my father. It was always about the process of figuring things out, and trying something new, and having another take on something and keeping it alive.
In work, never have any regrets and always leave everything on the field.
I grew up in a family where many of our close friends were gay couples. As well as that, every man goes through a period of thinking they're attracted to another guy.
Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, 'exhaust every possibility.' Once you get to a certain place, it's like you just deliver everything you've got. Don't have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again.
If you're going to spend seven months of your life - for me seven months, for Roland Emmerich, 3, 4, 5 years of his life - doing something, I think you have to have something to say.
I'm open to whatever people want to call me.
I'm going to continue doing what I want to do. And if it means I want to go and make a big movie, if it has something to say, I will want to make it. I don't want to spend my life wasting my time. If it's a big movie, I want to do it. If it's a small movie, I want to do it.
Really, contrary to popular belief, I like to have a good time and not take myself too seriously.
My mum raised us on classic movies and a lot of musical theatre.
It bothers me when people say, 'Oh, you're so down to earth - for an actor.' Even when they don't say 'for an actor,' I feel like that's the implication. Why are the standards so low for performers?
'Brokeback Mountain' takes all your conceptions of America, and the Western, and cowboys, and sexuality, and love, and it stirs them all up.
I hope I'm a spiritual person. I'm trying to be a spiritual person.
The last name is pronounced Jill-en-hall. It's spelled with two l's, two a's. We have a song in my family; G-Y-Double L - EN - HAAL spells Gyllenhaal. It's a Swedish name. It's a family heirloom set to music.
Theater has given me a different perspective on the way I approach films.
I think that more and more there's a sense that the best performances I can give are the ones that are the truest to who I am. The further I move away from who I am, the worse they are.
Do I take care of my body and take conditioning seriously? Yes.
I love 'Training Day' - that's a great movie.
