Jake Gyllenhaal
His blindness helps him in acting
Jake Gyllenhaal has spoken openly about his poor eyesight.
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Jake Gyllenhaal is “legally blind.” But his poor eyesight proves to be helpful in certain acting situations.
Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal (“Brokeback Mountain”, 43) was born with a visual impairment. But his very poor eyesight is an acting advantage for the actor under certain conditions. Gyllenhaal revealed this in an interview with the US industry magazine “The Hollywood Reporter”.
Poor eyesight improved acting performance
The actor, who is “legally blind” according to the US definition, was born with an eye misalignment, which fortunately can be corrected with a visual aid. “I like to think it’s an advantage,” Gyllenhaal told the US magazine in an interview. “I’ve never known anything else. When I can’t see anything in the morning before I put on my glasses, it creates a place for me where I can be with myself.”
Gyllenhaal says that his poor eyesight also benefits him from time to time when he appears in films. For example, in a key scene in the boxing drama “Southpaw”, when the police tell his character Billy Hope that his wife has died, he took out his contact lenses. This forced him to listen extremely carefully – and thus improved his acting performance.
Jake Gyllenhaal is keeping quiet about his potential wedding
Already in 2017, the star to “The Telegraph” talked about his poor eyesight. At the time, he described how he was bullied at school because of the thick lenses of his glasses. “I was an easy target. And I was always a sensitive child.”
However, Gyllenhaal did not want to comment on a possible wedding with his partner Jeanne Cadieu (26), a French model, in an interview with the “Hollywood Reporter”. “I should tell the ‘Hollywood Reporter’ that? I won’t give you a date,” he said when asked when he and Cadieu will tie the knot.
Gyllenhaal only gave more general thoughts on the subject. He explained: “I think we all get to that point of work, work, work, and for a long time my career took priority, but I’m at a stage in my life now where I realize that family is really the only thing that matters to me.”