It's no secret that Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal is incredibly dedicated to his craft and will go to great lengths for a role.
The 33-year-old actor is back to sporting a healthy appearance after losing a startling 30 pounds to play an underground crime-scene videographer in the upcoming film Nightcrawler, and in a new interview with E! News, the handsome thesp opened up about his dramatic weight loss and extreme transformation for the flick.
"It was a slow process, that process, and a lot of it was starting with those analytical discussions with Dan Gilroy [the film's director] and figuring out who he was, his backstory," the Brokeback Mountain star said of the lbs. he dropped to play Lou Bloom in the crime thriller. "I always like to think of characters as a certain kind of animal and we discussed him as a coyote kind of personified."
He continued, explaining how his commitment to the character made his weight loss mission much easier to swallow.
"So by the time we started shooting I was totally unaware of how I looked, really," he said. "I was just completely zeroed in on the scenes at hand and the movie at hand. We only had 26 days to shoot it…so we were just going."
This isn't the first time Gyllenhaal has addressed his shrinking appearance for the forthcoming flick. He previously told E! News that his mom was concerned when he became skin and bones. "I'd say my mother was worried," he admitted. "I would say she just wanted me to be careful. But she also knew and knows how seriously I take what I do and she respects that.
"She knows that I'm a big boy and I could handle myself and that I would stay within the realm of being safe, but yes, she worried," he continued. "She'd be like, 'You're cranky—eat something.'"
Watch the clip to hear more about Gyllenhaal's experience filming the movie! Nightcrawler hits theaters on Oct. 31.