Jake Gyllenhaal Biography

Born in Los Angeles in 1980, Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and producer/screenwriter, Naomi Foner Achs. Film making and acting certainly run in the Gyllenhaal family and Jake’s sister, Maggie, is also a successful actress in her own rights.

Having studied at the exclusive Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, Jake went on to study Eastern Religion at Columbia University for two years, before his early dalliances with acting took over.

Jake landed his debut film role when he was 11-years-old playing Billy Crystal's son in ‘City Slickers’. Over the next few years he cropped up in ‘A Dangerous Woman’, ‘Josh and S.A.M’ and ‘Homegrown’. However, he was far from becoming a child star thanks to his parent’s insistence that he complete his education before tuning to full time acting.

1999 saw Jake strike out on his own in the film ‘October Sky’, based on the autobiography of Homer Hickam Jr. The film was a US box office hit and is credited for the ease with which Jake found new film offers once he quit Columbia University two years later.

2001 was a busy year for the young star and saw the release of the cult classic ’Donnie Darko’. Starring opposite his sister Maggie and Patrick Swayze, Jake excelled as a troubled student with a giant, silent rabbit as a guardian angel.

Following on from the release of Disney’s ‘Bubble Boy’, Jake took on two unconventional roles as the object of the affections of Catherine Keener in ‘Lovely And Amazing’ and Jennifer Anniston in ‘The Good Girl’.

Acting on career advice passed on by Dustin Hoffman whilst filming ‘Moonlight Mile’, Jake next took a part in the London West End production of ‘This Is Our Youth’. Having transferred from Broadway, the play, and Jake in particular, wooed the critics. In 2002, he walked away with the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer.

Jake’s personal life also received a boost around this time when he began dating Kirsten Dunst. The pair had been introduced by Jake’s sister Maggie. Despite narrowly missing out on the role of Spiderman opposite his new girlfriend, Jake found himself starring in the doom-laden blockbuster ‘The Day After Tomorrow’. The film was an expected success and while his career had now hit the big time, his relationship with Dunst moved into one of those all too familiar ‘on/off’ affairs devoured by the tabloid press.