Jake and Gemma's
"Hot" Desert Adventure!
by Lynn Barker
 In the video game-based film adventure Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Jake Gyllenhaal and pretty Brit actress Gemma Arterton play royals fighting the bad guys to safeguard an ancient, magical dagger capable of releasing the "Sands of Time", a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world. You might have checked out the video game at some time in the past. We're learning that both Jake and Gemma braved 120 degree temps way out in the Moroccan desert to bring the game's characters to life.
We want to know how these adventuresome actors felt about the location challenges, the awesome stuntwork they trained for, what makes their on screen romance of opposites work so well and what advice would Jake give to tweens and teens who are trying, as is his character Dastan, to come of age and recognize their potential. Check it out. First, Jake...
AGW: Is there anything about your character Dastan that sends a positive message to coming of age teens who need to recognize their potential?
Jake: Yeah. He was an orphan and he was brought into a family, or the royal family by the King because of a good deed that he did and because he was pure of heart. A lot of things kind of threaten us all the time and to not listen to our own hearts, to make choices based on what other people think are cool or what other people say are cool (just doesn't work).
The lesson for Dastan is to follow his own heart and to influence other people around him like his brothers and his family to follow theirs too. And when he does this, it all works out for the best . Ultimately it’s not painless but it’s for the best and I hope that kids can take away that if they listen to their hearts, they’ll never really go wrong.
AGW: Were you familiar with the video game before you got involved with the film?
Jake: I was familiar with the game since I was a young boy. I used the side scrolling version of the Prince of Persia, the original (that was) created on the first Mac computer in elementary school. I remember doing that. And then I took like a 20 year hiatus from the game and I didn’t really play it that much. When I read the script for this movie, I took the opportunity and I started researching and started playing the game and got to know it very, very intimately.
AGW: How much martial arts or Parkour training did you do and was it what you expected? (Note: Parkour is a style of getting from one place to the next by running, jumping and using the objects in one's path. Done correctly, it looks amazingly graceful).
Jake: It was the first type of training that I started to do. First I was I working with gymnasts, starting to work on landings and things like that while I was doing regular cardiovascular training and other things for the role. I didn’t really start doing the serious Parkour stuff until we got to Morocco and we started choreographing the scenes on the top of Kasbahs and all the sets that we were shooting in. I think the hardest part of doing it is really the focus and being present and training your mind to not worry about whether you’re gonna make the landing but just focus on being present in the moment.
AGW: How weird or exciting was it to play the lead in a movie adapted from a game you played as a kid?
Jake: In these past few days I was thinking, 'I wish I could go back and tell that eight-year-old kid who was playing the game that one day 20 some odd years later, he would be playing the lead in a Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster movie based on that video and game' and just see how his eyes would pop out of his head, how excited he’d be. And that's kind of how I felt when I was making the movie. I felt like I was unlocking that piece of my childhood again. It was like fun every day, running and jumping and fighting bad guys.
 AGW: Your character Dastan starts out a little cocky and learns to be more humble. How did you work on showing that transformation?
Jake: Well I don’t know if he really loses his cockiness throughout the whole film. I hope he maintains it just enough but I think what happens is he realizes the importance of this (magical) dagger and his destiny and he realizes how much his family means to him.
At the beginning at the movie he’s an orphan and he’s rescued by the King and when he has the potential of losing this family that has brought him in and basically saved his life, he starts taking his life and the lives of others around him much more seriously. I think he still maintains a little bit of wit and humour throughout.
AGW: Was it different preparing for this role; a character in a popular game, than other roles?
Jake: Yeah. It’s a very, very difficult form of research. It required playing the game 3 or 4 times a day which is a very difficult job (he's kidding). And I was getting paid to exercise, it was really tough. No! (Seriously) there wasn’t much difference actually, that’s the interesting thing. If you’re playing a character that’s based on a book or one that’s even been alive, I would have to give as much attention. You have to focus just as much as you would if its videogame character or if it’s a real live human being or that’s at least how I feel.
AGW: In addition to Parkour, what other stuntwork or skills did you have to learn? Also, this movie is huge compared to several of your other, smaller films. How did that impress you?
Jake: Well it required a lot of technical work that I usually do in movies but this was learning how to do the rudimentary aspects of Parkour, learning how to swordfight, which involved learning martial arts and having martial arts training and learning really complicated choreography; working with two swords that I use and learning how to horseback ride proficiently in a way that I could do stunts.
There was learning a British accent and, on top of all of that, on a movie of this size when you make a different choice like if you block out a scene for instance and you make a different choice in the middle of the day and you say 'well maybe I should be over here', that affects a thousand more people than it would on a smaller movie or on other movies. It's just the sheer size of it.
I would drive up to set; and there’d be 500 cars like lined up for 5 miles before you even got to set; and then you would get to the base camp and it would be like an army had set up camp; and then we’d get on to set and there’d be these massive sets built that were 250 feet high with like every intricate detail done and then 1000’s of extras. It’d take 40 minutes to put on my costume I had these crazy intense boots that I wore that were like all Parkour style so that I could do the stunts, I had things that were attached to my costume and it took a long time. So it was kind of like getting prepared for some big sporting event.
AGW: Sounds just huge!
Let's let Jake be on his way and cozy up to his pretty leading lady Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans and the last Bond movie) to get the female take on all this macho, stunt-driven action!
AGW: Can you compare your experience on Prince of Persia with being a Bond girl and being in Clash of the Titans?
Gemma: Well, they’re very, very different films. I’d done the Bond film before I started Prince of Persia, and I was only in it for a small amount of time, so I didn’t actually see how huge it can be to be in a movie like that. But this was even bigger, I think and, with a fantasy movie, you have all these huge sets and the landscapes were much more epic. It was the first time I, really felt like I was in a massive, massive movie. Then I did Clash of the Titans afterwards, which, even though it was a big movie, it was small in comparison. So yeah, this was, for me, a really big deal, because I was the only girl in the movie as well.
 AGW: And what was that like? Being the girl with all those guys?
Gemma: You kind of get used to being the only girl maybe with one or two others but usually the girls don’t work with each other in these sort of movies, so you just get used to it and you kind of muck in. But yeah, I was intimidated, especially because the guys around me were such legendary actors like Sir Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina, and then, of course, Jake. And then, of course, you’re surrounded by all the (crew) guys on set. So, you can either be a sort of shrinking violet or you can be like me and just charge your way through (she laughs).
AGW: At this point in your career, did you think you would ever reach this level, and what other acting goals to you have?
Gemma: I never imagined myself even in a film, let alone a movie like this. I always thought I’d do theatre. So, my career has completely taken me by surprise. Even though I’ve made some really, really big movies, I’m trying to make small movies as well, and do theatre, and I’m in a really lucky position where I’m getting sent really cool scripts. I just want to be really selective and do something that you completely wouldn’t expect. And so we’ll see.
AGW: We understand that the shoot on location was pretty torturous in Morocco with temperatures sometimes as high as 120 degrees. How did you deal with that?
Gemma: Yeah, it was pretty hot, but being from London, you don’t really get that sort of weather ever so we kind of loved it. I loved it. Any Brit probably just was basking in the sun. It was pretty full on. As an actor, you don’t really have to sit out in the sun for very long since there’s always someone there with an umbrella and you get fed and watered. But it was pretty full on, and the rest of the crew were out there all day long. But I got a nice tan!
AGW: We've heard about Jake's training but how intense was your physical training for your fight choreography and stunts that you had to do in the film?
Gemma: I didn’t have to go through as much as Jake and some of the other guys, but I still had quite a lot to do, and, more than anything, I had to train in the gym just to get my stamina up, ‘cause it was pretty full on out there and I needed to be able to get through the day without collapsing. So I was in the gym six days a week. And then we went through like a fighting boot camp, where we learned how to fight and that was pretty fun, I always saw myself as a little bit of a stunt girl, but never had the opportunity to do it. I got to do a lot of my own stunts, and that was really cool as well.
AGW: At first your character and Dastan don’t get along but she comes to see him differently. Can you talk about their relationship and how it grows and the moment that she realizes that Dastan is different than she thought?
Gemma: At the beginning I’m captured by the Persians, so I don’t really like them, and Jake’s character Dastan is one of those. So she’s quite snooty at the beginning, and very regal. As the film develops, she wears him down and realizes that there’s a lot more to him. I think it’s when she sees him mourn his father, when she sees that there’s something else going on. And I think they play an important role in each other’s development. She makes him realize himself, and he kind of softens her and opens her up, takes the strings out of her bow a little bit.
AGW: If you had the power to turn back time and change something, what would you change?
Gemma: I wouldn’t change a thing in my own life, but I’d like to go back in time anyway to some eras that I wish I’d lived in, like the ‘60s. I’d love to have been in London in the ‘60s, partying away.
AGW: Sounds like fun to us!
pictures
courtesy of and copyright Walt Disney Pictures, 2010 |
