It took 15 years, but Jake Gyllenhaal is finally about to star in a Marvel movie. The actor is playing the cult-favorite villain Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home, and his relationship with co-star Tom Holland is already providing a lot of viral moments for the fans. But this isn’t the first time Gyllenhaal was linked to the Wall Crawler, as some fans might recall.
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Back in the early 2000s after the premiere of Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire suffered an injury while filming Seabiscuit. Chatter among Sony Pictures execs indicated that they didn’t want to wait to get rolling on the sequel to Sam Raimi’s hit film, and discussions were had about possibly replacing him. Gyllenhaal’s name was frequently mentioned in these Hollywood rumors, and now the actor is addressing these discussions.
“I heard the same thing,” Gyllenhaal told Yahoo! “The truth of the matter is, in the end, he’s Spider-Man. There are so many roles in my career where I was up against another actor, or something happened that possibly could’ve happened but didn’t happen but maybe it would have… Eventually my belief is when an actor’s played a character, particularly in a movie, the character’s theirs, and that’s that.”
He added, “But yeah he hurt himself and there was talk. And there was a slew of actors [possibly up for the part], and I was one of them.”
Gyllenhaal’s casting in Spider-Man: Far From Home was a surprise considering that he’s usually sticked to intimate, adult-oriented productions and shied away from big blockbuster fare. The actor revealed that a lot of that stems from Disney’s failed attempts to launch a franchise with The Prince of Persia, in which Gyllenhaal starred in the title role.
“I think I learned a lot from that movie in that I spend a lot of time trying to be very thoughtful about the roles that I pick and why I’m picking them,” he said. “And you’re bound to slip up and be like, ‘That wasn’t right for me,’ or ‘That didn’t fit perfectly.’ There have been a number of roles like that. And then a number of roles that do.”
Marvel fans should be happy that Gyllenhaal finally joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if only because we got to see him and Tom Holland cosplay as the characters from A Night at the Roxbury.
Spider-Man: Far From Home premieres in theaters on July 2nd.
