With 20 years of screen credits behind him, Jake Gyllenhaal is a 31-year-old actor with a résumé that defies expectations. He was raised by parents in the business (director Stephen Gyllenhaal and producer/writer Naomi Foner) and with an actress sister (Maggie Gyllenhaal), but Jake forged his own path with a mix of blockbusters (“Day After Tomorrow”), iconic indies (“Brokeback Mountain”) and highly personal projects, like his recent “End of Watch,” a $7-million indie about East L.A. cops that took in $39.1 million worldwide. Ask how he did it, and Jake suggests it’s a mix of being raised right, gut instinct and a deep desire to tell meaningful stories.

Do you find that since you’ve turned 30, you feel differently about yourself and the world?

At 30, there were a number of moments in my life that culminated or began — like my family being born in a new way, with two nieces that are now in my life. My parents got divorced right around that time.

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Jake Gyllenhaal recently sat down with THR’s Scott Feinberg for a wide-ranging conversation about his life, 21 years in the movies, and the future. Check out the 40-minute interview here.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down in New York with the Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal following a screening of his hit film End of Watch for a wide-ranging conversation about his life and career. Gyllenhaal, who will turn 32 next month and has now been acting professionally for 21 years, says that he recently arrived at something of a turning-point in both: after his experience with End of Watch and now the acclaimed off-Broadway play If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, he has decided that he will only take on projects that challenge and mean as much to him as they do. Together — we took a look back at his remarkable journey to this conclusion.

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Jake Gyllenhaal underwent hefty physical and emotional training for his role as a renegade young cop in David Ayer’s ‘End of Watch’.

After five months spent pulling night shifts with the LAPD preparing for his role in David Ayer’s gritty cop drama End of Watch, Jake Gyllenhaal is sure of one thing: “I don’t think I could ever do a police officer’s job for real,” he sighs.

“The only similarity I can see between an acting job and a real police officer’s work is the ability to observe human behaviour. Obviously the stakes are a lot higher for a police officer,” says the actor who estimates that he went on more than 50 ten-hour shifts with co-star Michael Pena as they prepared for a 22-day shoot in which they attempted to emulate the bond between cops whose lives literally depend on one another.

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Jake Gyllenhaal is happy to finally have a day job.

“Being onstage pretty much every night, sometimes twice a day, is a wonderful consistency that I haven’t really been used to,” the 31-year-old actor said of his off-Broadway play, “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet,” which was just extended through late December at the Laura Pels Theatre.

In the play by Nick Payne, Mr. Gyllenhaal, making his New York stage debut, plays Terry, a drifter who drops in on his brother’s family and develops a friendship with his niece, Anna (Annie Funke). Terry scrutinizes the family’s destructive effects on Anna, whose mother (Michelle Gomez) is consumed by her work and whose father (Brían F. O’Byrne) is obsessed with environmental activism. All the while, water slowly seeps onto the stage, eventually submerging actors’ feet and ankles.

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Jake Gyllenhaal has been awake for roughly 24 hours, give or take a few winks he may have caught on the fly. Yet the actor is pulsating with an enthusiasm so palpable you could almost touch it. He apologizes for the charmingly mussed state of his hair, and his messy attire of jeans and sneakers. He gulps water from a reusable bottle and quips that given how sleep-deprived he is, he probably isn’t making much sense.

And when told that his level of energy is, to say the least, awe-inspiring, he shrugs.

“This is not tired. It’s great. It’s nice to be having a movie opening and a play opening. It’s a blessing, not tiring,” says Gyllenhaal, 31.

Indeed, the actor has hit his professional sweet spot. He’s starring in the off-Broadway play If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, and his performance as a drifter has earned him solid reviews from critics.

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