Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal will receive the Golden Icon award for lifetime achievement at this year’s Zurich International Film Festival.
Gyllenhaal will attend the Zurich fest to present Stronger, in which he stars as Boston marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman. Stronger, directed by David Gordon Green, which will have its world premiere in Toronto on Friday, will screen Oct. 3 in Zurich.
At least since his breakout performance as Donnie Darko in 2001, Gyllenhaal has counted among the greatest actors of his generation. His embrace of complicated and troubled characters — a closeted gay man struggling with love and identity in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, a psychotic ambulance chasing video journalist in Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler — has been rewarded with both critical and commercial acclaim.
Gyllenhaal was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, a performance that won him a BAFTA in the same category. His starring turn in Nightcrawler, as well as his performance as a pharma rep who falls for a woman suffering from Parkinson’s in Ed Zwick’s Love & Other Drugs, earned him Golden Globe best actor nominations.
Gyllenhaal recently wrapped production on Wildlife, Paul Dano’s directorial debut, in which he stars alongside Carey Mulligan and which he and Dano co-produced through Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories shingle. Upcoming productions include The Sister Brothers, the English-language debut of French director Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone). With Nine Stories, Gyllenhaal is in development on several titles, including the video game adaptation The Division, in which he will also star, and The Son, an adaptation of the Jo Nesbo best-seller, which Denis Villeneuve is attached to direct.
The 13th Zurich Film Festival runs Sept. 28-Oct. 8.
