The actor sports a rippling physique in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and spent hours pumping iron to develop his flat stomach and rippling biceps. Jake knew he had to wear a weighty costume for the role, so decided to don a special outfit whenever he exercised so it didn’t come as too much of a shock.

“I wore a flak jacket to work out and carried an extra 20lbs when I went on a run to simulate the armour, which is very heavy. Whenever I ran I’d also carry something in my hand to get used to running with a sword,” he explained. “It was six months of training. Everything I did was so I could do the same thing on set, not for aesthetics.”

The 29-year-old pushed himself hard for the part, and didn’t stop training even on set. He wanted to shoot as many of the action sequences as possible himself, meaning he didn’t get much free time while making the movie.

“I always want to do as much as I can myself,” he has explained. “And I’m a perfectionist when it comes to fight sequences. I want to get every move perfect and I refuse to accept anything less than that.”

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time will be released on DVD later this month.

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Whether Jake is ever confused with another actor: ‘Yes, Tobey! Perhaps because we both lived, at different times, with the same person [Kirsten Dunst]. Despite some rivalry, we have a lot of respect for each other. I admire his career.’

Jake’s first girlfriend: ‘She found me too talkative and left me very quickly. She wasn’t wrong.’

Is Jake ‘good at pulling’? ‘They wanted to label me as a seducer, but now I think I’ve proved that I’m not like that, and I can’t turn over a new leaf overnight.

At school Jake was more interested in the early history of cinema than in the early history of the earth.
Does Jake ever fall asleep in front of the TV? ‘Yes, and it’s not a good sign. It means I’m alone and I’m depressed, so it’s better that it happens as little as possible.’ In my experience, all men fall asleep in front of the TV – they have a gene for it – and so Jake shouldn’t feel bad that this happens to him.

What’s on Jake’s ‘in front of the TV’ dinner tray? ‘Not much. Definitely a sandwich that I made in a rush, with some chips.’ I think by ‘chips’ Jake doesn’t mean chips, but crisps (hopefully cheese and onion, or barbecue beef).

If Jake were watching TV and one of his movies came on, would he watch it? ‘That’s very rare. It would have to be because I have an excellent memory of the shoot and because I took that time to heart.’

Does Jake think he’s ugly? Yes he does – very, very ugly. ‘At those times, it’s better to avoid me.’ But, fortunately, less attention is made to appearance these days. ‘We try to grow and be a better person.’

What are Jake’s first thoughts in the morning when he looks in the mirror? ‘Nothing, I can’t even think in the morning. I always feel like I’m in a coma. I take a shower, I try to eat breakfast and I go to work’.

Does Jake have any paparazzi disguises? ‘If you consider a cap a disguise, yes. It doesn’t really cover me but I have an impression of feeling protected.’

Jake’s remedy against stage fright: ‘Sport! Individual or as a team, such as basketball. That’s my only weapon to exhaust all my fears.’

What stresses Jake the most? ‘The holidays at the end of the year. My mother’s Jewish and my father Christian. And all these religious festivals and traditions end up seriously distressing me.’

What prevents Jake from sleeping? ‘Unfinished work. If something prevents me from completing a scene, I find it impossible to sleep’.

Has Jake ever been on a diet? ‘Yes, but for my muscles. For the movie Prince of Persia, I had to put on lots of muscle, so I managed a balanced diet with extra protein.’

What’s the messsage on Jake’s phone? ‘At first, my voicemail said politely: ‘You are through to Jake’s phone, please leave a message after the beep’. I was told that the message was corny and it wasn’t wise to talk about myself but I should be using a prerecorded message. I gave in to the pressure and now people complain because they are never sure that they’re on the right answer phone.’
Jake’s phone tune: ‘A musician friend composed a tune exclusively for my cell phone. I complained that I had the same tune as everyone else. Thanks to him, without doubt, I always know if it’s my phone or not.’

Hollywood’s “sensitive” boy actor Jake Gyllenhaal is all manly and epic for Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. In the film, he’s a buff man’s man who’s able to leap tall buildings with a single bound as a noble-hearted royal avenger, the adopted son of the King of Persia. His adventures begin when his father is murdered and he is framed for the crime.  Armed with the gorgeous Princess Tamina played by Britain’s Gemma Arterton and a steadfast horse, Dastan (Gyllenhaal) heads into the desert to undo the wrongs done to him and his family.

The movie’s an old-fashioned, ’50s special effects extravaganza — the way they used to make them with Errol Flynn, Cornel Wilde and Charlton Heston.  But it’s based on a totally modern video game. It’s also a big-budget gambit for Jake Gyllenhaal. And this Jake is all new.

Q1: AskMen.com : This character is out of character for you as an actor. Jake Gyllenhaal : The character I have in the movie is more similar to me than any character I’ve ever played in a movie. Really, contrary to popular belief, I like to have a good time and not take myself too seriously. I really don’t like to look inwards because it’s boring. No, not really!  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. You know I love that type of music just as much as the complicated introverted complicated stuff. This happens to be a whole lot of really fun major chords for kids and families and everyone. I should be singing my answer!

Q2: AM : How important are your newfound abs to you? JG : I don’t know if I have enough time to go into specifically how much they mean to me. But they make me who I am. Without them, I don’t know. At awards shows, I will always thank them, that and the hair. I think I’m going to make my hair jealous in the movie, anything about my abs. If you don’t mind, I would like to include my hair in this comment and so I’d like to say my abs have been a little upset actually that they have been covered by suits and shirts for most of the publicity of this movie so without them, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about them. I don’t know where I would be without them.

Q3: AM : You shoot off the tops of buildings and off walls as the athletic prince. He appears to be doing his own Parkour, and Parkour isn’t for sissies. So did you do it for real? JG : Uh, I gotta go! No, I can’t do that. You learn how to do the jumps, particularly the landing. It’s the most important part. You start with very small landings. When you get your mind into, when you’re doing a thing like this for six or seven months, it was my everyday. And so, eventually at six months in, you know, we were shooting at Pinewood Studios in London, at the end of the shoot and we were doing a lot of the secondary stunt stuff and some big jumps. It was a little bit more controlled because we were on stage when we weren’t shooting in the casbahs of Morocco. You know, the falls would be as high but we had a little bit more control. I’m sort of surprised I did them.

Q4: AM : Gamers who have played the Prince of Persia video game for 20 years are going to watch the film closely, they may be super critical. Does that provoke a case of nerves? JG : I think we have a lot of people who are very excited to see it, particularly the gamers. Video game movies have not been successfully adapted and I think we have gone out of our way to interpret the video game not copy it. Which brings criticism from avid gamers but it’s the only way to make a movie based on a video game good, to take it and interpret it.  I’m excited for them to see it. They’re going to have a great time.

Q5: AM : You have premiered Prince of Persia around the world and everywhere you go people have one question for you. JG : The question I always get is how I got into shape. That seems to be from photographs and the trailer which is all they have to go on at this point. It’s interesting to them, seeing me in a different light. But what I would want people to know about the movie — it’s really important to say — is that I know guys are interested in the movie, but kids! I cannot wait. All over the world at premieres, wherever there was a child, to see their response after was… [huge smile]. I screened the movie for my cousins and family the other day. My cousins were jumping off the seats! They’re anywhere from 6 to 14, and they were terrifying their parents, but jumping off reasonable heights, jumping and fighting, and that’s what I felt like when I saw Indiana Jones when I was a kid. That’s what I want people to know, people ask me if they can take their kids and if it’s too dangerous? And I’m like: “this movie was made for kids, for family.” I can tell everybody now, you can take your kids.

Q6: AM : But of course, the thing people most need to know about Jake Gyllenhaal is, how do you pronounce your last name? JG : My thoughts on my last name are that it’s already complicated for people and I don’t want to complicate it anymore. I will clear it up. 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. I’m singing all over these interviews, aren’t I?

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Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the hottest A-Listers in Hollywood and it has nothing to do with his Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time beating out Sex and the City 2 from the second spot of the North American box office on Memorial Day weekend.

The 29-year-old actor’s winning attributes are talent, versatility, elegance and intelligence. Throw in good looks and innate charisma, and you have a superstar.

From the very dark Donnie Darko (2001) to the brilliant Brokeback Mountain (2005) to the gorgeously made Arabian Nights-styled fantasy, Prince of Persia, based on a video game and given the epic treatment for the big screen by movie mogul producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Studios, Gyllenhaal has proven that he’s got the chops to carry the weight of a major motion picture. That ability, in the multibillion-dollar movie industry, is no minor feat.

Special effects and CGIs aside, it doesn’t require a statistician to calculate that the reason why Prince of Persia grossed more than $37 million in the United States and Canada, based on published industry figures, is the obvious fact that Gyllenhaal, with the physique of an Olympian, drew the public like a magnet to the their local cineplexes.

On Sunday, lists of the leading moneymakers had the divas of Sex and the City 2 following the reigning king, Shrek Forever After, among the Top 5 highest ticket sellers. Then, on Monday, updated numbers showed Prince had topped Sex‘s intake, after all, despite mixed reviews that leaned toward the darker side of the star-rating system.

Before Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opened after a strong publicity campaign, The Herald spoke with Gyllenhaal about his latest movie. Had Jarhead (2005) and the more recent Brothers (2009), both with Gyllenhaal, been as fun to watch as this one, they may have fared better in the mainstream marketplace. However, that was then, Prince is now, and it is better than what you may have heard: a movie whose sole purpose is to entertain and does.

“It’s fun, right?” Gyllenhaal said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.

The obvious answer is yes, it is fun, because it transports the viewer to a time of myths and legends that require no explanation: a sit-back-and-enjoy adventure, and that is part of its charm. Gyllenhaal obviously loves the movie, and one can detect this by simply listening to his description of a brief moment early in the story:

There’s one shot at the very beginning of the movie where you see the king, and somehow he’s on the horse and he picks up the young Dastan. The horse is glimmering gold, and he’s glimmering gold. And I always think, when I see that shot, of all the little kids who will hopefully go [to] the movie and are going to see that. It’s going to make some kind of unconscious impression on them, even just the colors.

British director Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2005) and Australian cinematographer John Seale, who won an Oscar for The English Patient (1996), glaze the movie with golden hues — the opening scene of the fabled City of Alamut looks magnificent — and the colors, as Gyllenhaal rightly points out, enhance the mystical journey to defy the future, as the tagline on the one sheet admonishes.

If Gyllenhaal has what he calls that tendency to work in dramas, his niche may just be the action-adventure blockbuster that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is en route to becoming worldwide. Those who have seen him in Jarhead and Brothers will discover in this film a versatility in Gyllenhaal that we attribute to legendary actors like Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster and Tyrone Power, who had the body, the face, the smiles and the athletic prowess to jump from deep dramas to light adventures, and vice versa, with magical panache.

When versatility enters the conversation it is next to impossible not to include his elder sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, one of this year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees for Crazy Heart (2009), in the picture.

I’m just trying to catch up to her, to be honest”, Gyllenhaal said modestly. I have a feeling she’ll have a long, incredible career.”

Despite the fact that their father, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a DGA award-winning director and their mother, Naomi Foner, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, both Jake and Maggie chose to follow in their parents’ filmmaking footsteps via the acting route.

Jake explained that during a recent interview with Radio Disney, the announcer asked him what advice he would give to kids who would want to get into acting and the performing arts.

My parents always insisted that I stay in school, much to my dismay at the young age that I was”, said Gyllenhaal. I was convinced I knew what I wanted to do. Funny enough, I knew I wanted to be an actor at the time.

Moreover, they kept on insisting that he have a proper education and learn to write in my own voice and read great books written by great minds.

At Columbia University in New York he immersed himself in the minds of great western thinkers of the ranks of Aristotle, Plato, Aeschylus, Freud, Jung, Tolstoy, among others.

Any type of mind that was coming up with great ideas,” he said.

His immersion into the masterpieces of world literature was the result of his parents saying: We know what you think you want to do, but go and learn.

According to Gyllenhaal, his decision to become a professional actor was a normal thing.

I love the puzzle of movie making”, he adds. I love the kind of strange equation that comes out, when it works and when it doesn’t. I love the idea of putting pieces together and that if you change something here, it affects everything else.

Returning to the subject of the profession that he feels grateful to be a part of, he considers Bruckheimer’s humility as one of the qualities that has led to his consistent and enormous success as a Hollywood giant.

He has a knack that movies are about fun”, said Gyllenhaal. It’s been great making this movie and then promoting it and have people see it. People just go: `I had a great time.’ I was brought up thinking that movies were very serious and this and that. I don’t believe that anymore. After working with Jerry, it’s a sense as if movies are like notes on a piano. There are major chords, minor chords, unresolved cadences, and major chords with resolved cadences. There are so many different ways of making films, and he knows how to have his audience [enjoy] an incredibly good time. He brings out the best in the people who are working for him.

Gyllenhaal says he told Bruckheimer: I want to do [Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time] because I want to have a good time. I’m tired of taking myself so seriously. He said: `Welcome.’ ”

One of the key words in Prince of Persia, which appears on screen at the beginning of the film is destiny.

I think it’s always a toss-up between free will and destiny,” said Gyllenhaal. I’m really starting to sense that destiny definitely does exist. A lot of it is about just trusting that you are where you’re supposed to be.

What Gyllenhaal says he hopes what the young people who go see the movie take with them when they leave the theaters is simple, but not simplistic.

From the very beginning of the movie, the character that I play, Dastan, always follows his heart,” Gyllenhaal emphasized. That leads him to great places. It leads him to have great fun. It leads him to enjoy his life and what happens even when he’s in difficult situations.

Another important theme in the film is the family and unity among brothers. As a homeless child surviving in the streets, Dastan’s bravery impresses the King of Persia to the extent that he adopts him as a son.

“No matter what, family is wherever you find it,” Gyllenhaal said. “Sometimes they’re not even you’re biological family. Sometimes they’re just the people you go through tough times with and who care for you. But most of all, I hope [the kids] take away from it that they get to go into a huge, amazing world.” And he adds with a touch of humor that he also hopes that “parkour becomes an important sport in many young kids’ lives.”

Parkour could be defined as a running-type of “sport” –although “discipline” is the more commonly used term to describe it — requiring speed, agility and dexterity — Dastan does a lot of climbing, leaping and jumping in the movie to evade his pursuers — that reminds us of the gravity-defying acrobatics popularized on the screen in martial arts and other action-driven films.

“It certainly is fun,” assures Gyllenhaal. “I remember being a little kid and riding in the back seat of my parents’ car and looking at the telephone poles as we drove down the highway, thinking of myself jumping from telephone pole to telephone pole. I remember that spirit as a kid. And I got to do it in this movie. I got to fulfill it in this movie. I hope [the viewers] have a great time.”

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But were rigorous training and a strict diet the only factors contributing to his new washboard abs? Gyllenhaal’s trainer, Simon Waterson, spoke with PopEater to reveal how the doe-eyed actor transformed his body in less than four months.

Gyllenhaal’s ‘Prince of Persia‘ trainer is a former Royal Marine who has helped other A-list actors — including Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig for the ‘James Bond‘ films — bulk up for movie roles. But turning Gyllenhaal into a hulking warrior took a lot of mental and physical stamina; Waterson admits the average person would have to be “extremely dedicated” to achieve similar results.

In the early morning, Gyllenhaal would put on a 20-pound flak jacket and run around a park and in the sand — simulating scenes he would be filming in Morocco for ‘Persia.’ He’d then head off to script readings and sword fight training before returning in the evening to start his second round of exercise, resistance training. The actor would eat six times a day — three meals and three snacks, each of which contained a lot of protein, electrolytes and carbohydrates.

“He had the luxury of having me around 24/7 for almost a year and even while he was filming,” Waterson says. “I made sure he trained when he need to train. He was fed when he needed to be fed. And rested when he needed to rest. You have to bear in mind, this was an intensive four months of training. He was living an athlete’s life.”

Waterson admits anyone could get Gyllenhaal’s shape, but should go about it in a less-intensive way. “The average person isn’t going to be climbing walls and running through sand wearing a suit of armor. Jake had to be conditioned in a way of being capable of doing those things while cameras were rolling hours a day on set,” he said, adding that his focus was to get the actor in such great shape that he could withstand the rigorous stunts and months of filming without getting injured.

Waterson says the average person should consult with a personal trainer and make sure their body can endure the process before tackling Jake’s ‘Persia’ regimen. He adds the most people probably “don’t have the time” to commit the same way Gyllenhaal did, and advises people looking to get in shape fast to do hard cardio workouts one day and resistance training the next day.

Even at his peak, Gyllenhaal had a few moments of weakness, like anyone else. “Like anybody, you always have a little bit of self doubt,” Waterson said. He did every exercise with Gyllenhaal. Set for set, rep for rep and mile for mile, he helped push the actor — even when there were intense moments of throwing in the towel.

“He was 110 percent committed. And I think I trained him too well, because he was a lot fitter than me by the end of it,” Waterson jokes. “I have to give Jake a lot of the credit. Yes, I was his trainer, but for this part, he was very disciplined. I have a massive respect for him because at the end of the day, he is an actor and very committed to being the best.”

While Waterson couldn’t be prouder of Gyllenhaal, he has moved on to his new project — another A-list celebrity, whom he wouldn’t reveal, but said would be bulking up over the few months. “You’ll have to wait and see, but I think people will be extremely surprised when they see how much muscle this guy has now,” he reveals.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s ‘Prince of Persia’ Regimen

► Pre-workout Snack: Half a banana, some nuts and an espresso.

► Morning Workout: An hour-and-a-half cardio workout while wearing a 20 lb. flak jacket to simulate the weight of armor. Interval training (10 minute uphill sprint, followed by abs exercises). Repeat sequence five times, then a 10 minute run, followed by stretching.

► Breakfast: An egg-white omelet, a small protein shake and an isotonic drink to replenish salts lost during training.

► Lunch: Baked potato with tuna and salad.

► Evening Workout: An hour of resistance training using cables to simulate sword fights; pull-ups, press-ups, abs exercises using weights; finish with stretching.

► Dinner: Soup and a protein shake

► Snacks/supplements: Two liters of water, protein bars, dark chocolate, supplements rich in omega-3, 6 and 9. No foods containing refined sugar, occasional glass of wine allowed.

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