The rain is pouring down in Toronto. it’s torrential – of Noah’s Ark, biblical proportions. Torontonians scuttle in and out of downtown buildings, trying to avoid the storm, but it’s the sort of driving rain that soaks you in five seconds, so there’s really little point. Still, the saturated conditions have not put a dampener on the hundreds of Film Festival fans getting utterly drenched in a queue snaking around two blocks.
The reason for their unfettered enthusiasm? They’re in line for a sold-out session (having a ticket in Toronto is like having Willy Wonka’s golden ticket) of Prisoners – a thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman, and directed by Canadian auteur Denis Villeneuve. It has Oscar written all over it.
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Jake Gyllenhaal has some style advice. “Ask yourself why a red carpet is red,” says the actor, his face intensely serious. “It could be any colour.” It’s enough to throw us for a second, before he smiles that winning smile that lets you know he’s just kidding around. It’s the same with his outfit: a well-fitted navy suit, clean gingham shirt, hair slicked back, beard flecked with new patches of grey. At first glance he looks smart, business-like, until you spot his footwear: a pair of beaten-up biker boots that he wears everywhere. That’s the thing about Gyllenhaal; he projects a kind of intensity mixed with a likeability that means no matter the role – think the troubled teen of Donnie Darko, the damaged GI of Jarhead or the beat-cop of the recent End Of Watch – you’re invariably on his side.
After this storming turn as LAPD’s finest in End Of Watch, Jake Gyllenhaal is back in blue in Prisoners, a taut thriller that cast him alongside Hugh Jackman. It’s out on September 27, and he’s swinging by Empire towers to take your questions about his crime-fighter, working with Jackman, Viola Davis and Paul Dano, and forging another crunching crime flick that looks set to slow-burn its way to cult status. But that’s not all he’s here for. Prep your questions on Heath Ledger and Brokeback Mountain, Donnie Darko and Smurfette, Fincher and Zodiac… oh, and of course his sandwich of choice. It gets underway on Monday at 12.45 (GMT). 
As his new thriller Prisoners gives us another portayal of a good man who’s slightly damaged, we wonder whether the Donnie Darko star needs a hug.
