Jake Gyllenhaal opens up about anxiety while filming ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic email for free

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Jake Gyllenhaal has opened up about the anxiety he felt while filming Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Speaking to Howard Stern, Gyllenhaal said he felt so overwhelmed with nerves on the first day on set that he continually forgot his lines.

“It’s hard, man. That acting is hard. All of it. That world is enormous. And I joined that world way into that run; a train that was already moving,” he said of joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“Normally, I come in way early on and I get to figure it out.”

Gyllenhaal called the film “a whole different craft” and explained that scenes would change at a moment’s notice if someone came up with a better idea for a line, for example.

Gyllenhaal said his nerves overcame him on the first day on set, something which he said shocked both him and the actors he was working with.

“I was freaking out,” he explains. “It was a scene with [Samuel L] Jackson, Tom [Holland] …there were a number of actors in that scene. And I remember not being able to remember my lines. I was the wooden board. And they were like, ‘Whoa’.”

“And I went up to Tom Holland and was like, ‘Dude, help me out’. He’s like, ‘It’s all good, man. Just relax’. It was like he was me in so many situations. And I finally did. I just put a lot of pressure on [myself] because I love that world.”

Gyllenhaal went on to say that he tried to reassure those around him on set that his nerves would pass.

“I had to walk up and be like, ‘Look man, I just came off Broadway doing a one-man show for an hour and a half onstage, so I got this. Please, believe me’.”

Eventually he says, his nerves resided and he found his way on set.

Gyllenhaal’s latest film, an English-language remake of the 2018 Danish thriller The Guilty, can be watched on Netflix now.