Jake Gyllenhaal says the unexpected opportunity to become roommates with his brother-in-law and co-star Peter Sarsgaard, is a moment he will always cherish.
Fresh from dominating the UFC octagon in Road House, the Oscar-nominated actor has swapped his mouthguard for the courtroom in the Apple TV+ series Presumed Innocent.
Image: Peter Sarsgaard with wife Maggie Gyllenhaal – Jake’s older sister. Pic: AP
Based on the 1987 novel of the same name, and made into movie starring Harrison Ford in 1990, it follows a criminal lawyer accused of killing his co-worker and lover.
Despite the challenging theme, the filming process gave Gyllenhaal a moment in time for which he is forever grateful.
“We got to live together through a majority of it”, he tells Sky News.
“Most of the time, we both live in the same city but he’s with his family and I’m in my life and we see each other but we don’t live together, so it was a very special time in both of our lives that we got to really be like roommates.”
He adds: “It’s not a normal situation in that way, but man, did I cherish it and we got so much closer as a result of it”.
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Sarsgaard married Gyllenhaal’s sister, fellow actor and filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, in 2009 and they have one child together.
The 43-year-old says he has only known “wonderful things” to come from working with people he knows away from the screen.
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‘The most powerful note I was ever given’
“There’s an honesty there, I think, really it’s amazing.”
He says already being past the “introductory moments” allows actors a space and environment where you can reach a new level of connection in a shorter length of time.
“In our case, with my brother-in-law and I, we’re really devoted to our work and acting and storytelling and stuff so I think we also understand it as a craft, so we can kind of bring stuff from our relationship into scenes that are true in a fictional space, and we have great fun doing it.
“And then we can go home and we can have a beer and we can laugh and enjoy it.”
The Spider-Man star’s appreciation for Sarsgaard doesn’t stop there.
Image: Peter Sarsgaard. Pic: Apple TV+
He even credits his brother-in-law for the most memorable piece of direction he has ever received as an actor.
“He once came to see me in a show that I was doing on stage, and his only note for me was there’s power in stillness, and I remember that so much because I think it’s true.
“I think particularly as an actor but then generally in life, I think we have a tendency to want to move and express ourselves, and I think that oftentimes the stillness makes people lean in and also makes you focus on listening.
“And it does a lot of really, really powerful things. It was an incredible note and it came from Peter.”
‘People love a crime whodunnit’
Gyllenhaal leads the cast in Presumed Innocent as Rusty Sabich, a Chicago criminal lawyer who finds himself facing murder charges.
Sarsgaard plays fellow lawyer and public prosecutor Tommy Molto in the series.
This is Gyllenhaal’s first outing as a TV lead, and he has thoughts on why people are so attached to crime as a genre.
“It’s the ultimate question mark, right? It’s the ultimate mystery. And I think, thriller, a crime whodunit is always so interesting, particularly when it’s a story that’s unfolding over many different hours.”
Gyllenhaal adds: “It’s great fun, even though the subject matter is very intense, and I also think we’re fascinated in the extremes of human behaviour, that is the nature of us, fascinated by the ‘how is?’ and ‘how is it possible?’ and things like that”.
The first two episodes of Presumed Innocent are available to stream on Apple TV+ now with a new episode released each Wednesday.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.