One of the happiest results from this morning’s Golden Globe nominations in my mind was the recognition of Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway for their terrific performances in the comedic drama Love & Other Drugs. I had the pleasure of interviewing them together for our EW cover story and enjoyed seeing their unique friendship first-hand. Now that they’re both Golden Globe nominees (for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical), Gyllenhaal — who’s never gotten a Globe nod before, strangely — got on the phone to discuss his competition (including two Johnny Depp performances, Alice in Wonderland and The Tourist) and what Hathaway had to say when she texted him after the big news.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve had an Oscar nomination, a SAG Award nomination, and you’ve won a BAFTA. What took you so long with the Golden Globes?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL: [Laughs] It’s such a random thing! The irony of this one is that it isn’t the typical awards-season fare. Most movies that are acknowledged during awards season tend to be darker, and what’s special about this nomination is that it’s something about romance and hope.

So who’s your biggest competition for the win: Johnny Depp or Johnny Depp?
Right? Tell me about it. It’s a celebrity deathmatch with twin Johnny Depps. It’s pretty awesome that he was nominated twice. He’s such a badass.

I know you and Anne love to text each other all the time. So have you texted with her today?
She texted me this morning and I haven’t texted her back yet! Her text was…hold on a second, I’m going to grab my phone and I’ll tell you. This is an exclusive, hold on. [Rustles around for his phone.] She said, “Dude! Exclamation point. Congrats! Millions of exclamation points. You did it! Exclamation points. First Golden Globe nom, right? Millions of question marks. X.”

Wow, she knows her stuff.
She knows her awards history. It’s nice because the last movie we did [Brokeback Mountain] was acknowledged with awards. There’s something about us working together that seems to feel good and feel right.

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Jake Gyllenhaal looks positively relieved after rattling off a string of sexy puns related to the function of the male organ. “It’s probably best to get that over with,” he smiles wryly. For while the actor aggressively pursued the role of a Viagra salesman in Edward Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs – a part, he says, which comes closest to his own personality – it’s only now that the media-shy Gyllenhaal is realising the full implication of taking on such a character, and the inevitable questions that it will provoke about his own love life and sexual performance. Still, Gyllenhaal takes it like a man.

Based on the 2005 non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution Of A Viagra Salesman, in which author Jamie Reidy chronicles his experiences as a young Pfizer salesman in the late nineties, Gyllenhaal spent many hours with Reidy, mastering the art of the slick pitch. “Playing a salesman felt like an old shoe – it really did,” Gyllenhaal says. “How he sold to doctors, how he would charm doctors. One of the first scenes that we shot was me pitching to a roomful of businessmen. I just found myself thinking, ‘God! I’m really good at being shallow!'”

With his striking big blue eyes, and chiselled leading man features, Gyllenhaal could have just been another pretty boy but, determined to escape typecasting, he took on a string of different roles with The Good Girl, Jarhead, Zodiac and Proof, even trying his hand at blockbuster action adventure with Prince Of Persia. Perhaps the most defining moment of Gyllenhaal’s career, however, has been his role as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain‘s tale of forbidden love between two cowboys.

A monogamous kind of guy, Gyllenhaal relished playing Love & Other Drugs‘ charming womaniser. Without spoiling the plot, his character is faced with tough questions about whether one would knowingly enter into a relationship with someone who was very sick. It’s a tough choice for anyone, and certainly for the actor. “The irony is that in any relationship, you have to face those questions, and it’s interesting having to face them at the beginning,” Gyllenhaal offers. “It brought up lots of questions for all of us. Anne Hathaway’s character being sick is such a huge part of the movie, but we all fall apart. It’s just the nature of being a human being. Your body deteriorates, and that’s the fact.”

Working on the film has understandably given Gyllenhaal unique insights into the pharmaceutical industry, and whether or not we’re an overmedicated society which thinks that everything can be cured with a pill. “Maybe we’re all too trusting,” the actor suggests. “We’re not listening to our hearts. I don’t want to make a blanket statement about that, but in the movie, my character says to Anne’s character, ‘You’re my little blue pill’, so perhaps whatever we need in a pill we can get in intimacy instead maybe.”

Gyllenhaal certainly agrees that love may be the most powerful drug of all. “Yeah, I’d agree, if I’m a human being,” he smiles. “I sure hope that I am. If you have it and it’s real, then it doesn’t matter how long you have it for. You can’t really fake that.”

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‘What’s happened to the movies? All those Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy films about love? When I watch Rita Hayworth or Fred Astaire dance I think, why don’t we have that any more?’

‘So many films now are all about sex and love,’ continues Jake Gyllenhaal, fixing me with his intense blue eyes. ‘But you really don’t see the two of them coming together. I want love and sex in movies to be different than it has been.’

This isn’t idle talk. It’s a key element in Gyllenhaal’s new film, which takes as its departure point the prescription drug that never fails to raise a titter, but has changed so many millions of lives that it even has royal approval: it received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2001.

That drug is Viagra, and the film is Love & Other Drugs. It’s based on the autobiography Hard Sell: The Evolution Of A Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. The book details the author’s experiences working in the cut-throat pharmaceutical industry just as Viagra became the most talked-about pill on the planet. Jamie worked for Pfizer during a period when the company was generating sales of £1 billion a year from its magical new product.

Jake Gyllenhaal has admitted that he doesn’t see himself as being a Hollywood A-lister.

The 29-year-old Love And Other Drugs star insisted that he feels that in his opinion, he’s still got a lot more to achieve before he joins the elite.

Asked about his leading man status, he told Total Film, ‘I don’t see myself like that at all.

‘That’s very result-orientated. I’ve been like that at different times in my career, but at this point I’m not. I think people look at me a little bit like that, but I don’t.

‘I’ve been the lead in a lot of different movies but it’s never been about that. It’s funny. I was at some event for Prince Of Persia and Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage were there. And there I was standing with them thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?” he laughed.

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