14 DAY TRIAL // Often admired for his buff physique, Jake Gyllenhaal is barely recognizable these days because he’s lost a lot of weight for a movie he’s now working on, in which he plays a crime reporter named Lou.
The image above is of Gyllenhaal at this week’s Hollywood Film Awards 2013 and, obviously, it doesn’t take too keen an eye to see that he’s incredibly gaunt.
To Us Weekly, Jake explains that he probably dropped about 20 pounds (9.07 kg) but only because he felt that would make his character more convincing.
“I knew that [Lou] was literally and figuratively hungry,” he says, adding that he wanted to get himself into a “mode where I was always a bit hungry.”
“[‘Nightcrawler’] takes place in a land where I think there is a desert in a lot of ways, great opulence, and at the same time, great vastness and emptiness,” Jake adds of why it made sense for him to lose weight.
The film is now shooting in Los Angeles and, though previously released photos from the set had hinted he was thinner, it wasn’t until he walked the red carpet that fans and the media realized just how drastic his weight loss was.
The aforementioned publication even has a before and after photo comparison, to really drive the message home. “Nightcrawler” will be out next year.