Jake Gyllenhaal insists being legally blind has been “advantageous” to his career.
The ‘Donnie Darko’ actor, 43, has 20/1250 vision and has been wearing intensive corrective lenses since he was six years old after being born with a lazy eye, which naturally resolved.
He told The Hollywood Reporter about being classified as legally sightless: “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.”
Jake told how he removed his contacts for a scene in his 2015 boxing drama ‘Southpaw’ in which police told his character Billy ‘The Great’ Hope his wife is dead as he said the move forced himself to appear as if he was listening “more closely” to the cops.
Jake also revealed he has been actively seeking projects that “freak me out a bit”.
He said: “The feeling I want to have is, ‘Can I do it?’ That it’s going to ask of me things that I don’t know about myself yet.”
Jake’s last role as bouncer and MMA fighter Elwood Dalton in his remake of the cult Patrick Swayze favourite ‘Road House’ put him to the test.
He chiselled down his body to five per cent body fat for the part – and endured a staph infection from pressing his hand down on a bunch of broken glass after shooting a fight scene in the flick.
But Jake admitted he is prepared for this philosophy of taking on extreme challenges to eventually backfire.
He added: “There are movies I’ve made that people have said to me, ‘Man, intense. That was great. It was tough.’
“And 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.”
