'Prince of Persia': Fun for Jake Gyllenhaal

LONDON (AP): Jake Gyllenhaal just wants to have fun. Hence, he's swinging back into cinemas this weekend as the swashbuckling hero in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

"Somehow, it sparked that kid side of me and I just thought, 'I got to play this part'," says Gyllenhaal. "Whereas a lot of other roles take themselves so seriously, particularly in the huge movies, I couldn't imagine myself spending six or seven months of my life taking myself so seriously," he laughed.

After a series of heavy-hitting dramas, including Brothers, Rendition and Brokeback Mountain, the actor is playing a character straight out of a video-game console.

Based on the game Prince of Persia, Gyllenhaal portrays Prince Dustan, a street kid with a big destiny. He is adopted by a king at a young age and brought up to be a sword-wielding warrior in sixth century Persia. The story follows a royal murder mystery and his adventure with a mystical dagger that can turn back time.

During a recent interview with The Associated Press in London, Gyllenhaal was in a light-hearted mood.

AP: I'm presuming you've been offered loads of different action roles before, so what was it about Prince Dustan that really grabbed you?

Jake Gyllenhaal (JG): Well, the moment I read the first sequence of the movie, which is the siege on Alamut where he's (Prince Dustan) jumping around and lighting things on fire and having a good time doing it, I think that was the moment when I thought, 'There's a sense of humour here.' Here's one of those classic characters that's in the vein of Errol Flynn or Indiana Jones and those are the movies I loved when I was a kid, and I loved watching.

AP: So you wanted to have a laugh?

JG: Yeah, I wanted to have a good time, and I wanted to know that I was making a movie that an audience could have a good time in too.

AP: And had you played the video game before? Are you any good?

JG: When I was eight or nine years old, I played the original side-scroller game a lot. And then I took a 20-year hiatus (laughs) and only picked it up when I was doing research for the movie - which was very, very difficult research; it was hard. Three to four times a day I would have to be forced to go and play the video game. People don't really know how hard it is to be an actor and I can tell you how hard it is; it's working out every day and getting paid for it and also playing video games. So it's really been tough, a really tough road (laughs).

AP: Did you enjoy the stunts?

JG: It's very different doing them compared with playing the game. I'm actually quite disappointed you're just sitting there and you haven't swung through the window onto a horse.

That would be an incredible entrance, I would have done that for you if I could have and we had more time. But no, Mike Newell, the director, had a wire attached to my back and he would just control me ... I would do whatever he wanted. Move to the left, move to the right, jump, fight this guy, win!

AP: I want to ask you about the Parkour (free-running) stunts. Are you quite good at that now?

JG: No, I have to say. I saw this thing on MTV called 'The Ultimate Parkour Challenge' ... where they brought in some of the best Parkour athletes in the world. And I watched them do all these crazy things, which was actually semi-disturbing to see because they got injured quite a lot and I just thought, 'I've got no idea what I'm doing, these guys are extraordinary'. The fundamentals I do know and I can do things, but ultimately I cannot say I'm a card carrying Parkour athlete. I just try to mimic. I did jumps, I did my own jumps and different things but the dangerous stuff was done by the professionals.

AP: Would you return to the role? Obviously, Disney's got the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, too, and this looks like it could run awhile, too.

JG: Of course, I'd loved playing the role. I loved being a part of the movie. It's an incredible world, so if that were an opportunity, I would definitely take it.