Jake Gyllenhaal really gets into his roles, so it’s no surprise that he built-up muscle for Southpaw, a new film from The Equalizer director Antoine Fuqua. However, he looks nearly unrecognizable in the first still from the film.
The first image was posted on Deadline and shows Gyllenhaal in the boxing ring after a match. He gained 15 pounds of pure muscle, right after he finished shooting Nightcrawler, which required him to lose 25 pounds. It’s the kind of back-to-back drastic weight change that Matthew McConaughey pulled off when he went from Magic Mike to Dallas Buyers Club to True Detective.
In Southpaw, Gyllenhaal plays Billy “The Great” Hope, a Junior Middleweight Champion who deals with personal tragedy by fighting in the ring. It was written by Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter.
“Jake is going to change how people see him,” Fuqua told Deadline. He later added, “We literally turned him into a beast… Jake, my god, he’s a very electric, powerful fighter in this movie, and a guy who fights for his daughter. I’m confident that this will change how people see Jake, as a leading man.”
Southpaw doesn’t hit theaters until next year. You can still catch him in Nightcrawler, which earned him a Spirit Award nomination last week.
The incredible transformation of Jake Gyllenhaal for upcoming boxing drama 'Southpaw.' #actors #movies pic.twitter.com/DjYvSPRgbz
— Golden Globe Awards (@goldenglobes) November 29, 2014
image via Twitter from Golden Globes
image courtesy of INFphoto.com
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