Jake Gyllenhaal opened up about being legally blind and he believes it’s been “advantageous” to his silver screen career.
“I’ve never known anything else,” the Oscar nominee, 43, told the Hollywood Reporter Wednesday.
“When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself,” he said.
Gyllenhaal was born with a lazy eye and was naturally corrected early on in his life, and he has been relying on contact lenses since the age of 6.
Gyllenhaal’s vision is now 20/1250
The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and the US government determined a visual acuity of 20/400 is very low functional vision.
In his 2015 film “Southpaw,” Gyllenhaal tapped into his day-to-day experience of not being able to see clearly.
In one specific scene, Gyllenhaal’s character is told by a police officer that his wife has died.
To make his reaction more realistic, Gyllenhaal opted out of wearing his contact lenses in a bid to hear his co-star better.
The ‘Brokeback Mountain” actor opened up about his vision problems in 2017, telling the Telegraph that he was often bullied at school over the corrective glasses he wore.
“I was always a sensitive kid,” he said, adding that he was an “easy target” for trolls.
But it turns out that the squabbles helped him later on in life, as he credits them for preparing him to deliver in his onscreen fight scenes.
In Amazon’s “Road House” — which is director Doug Liman’s remake of the 1989 hit film that starred Patrick Swayze — Gyllenhaal went up against retired UFC fighter Conor McGregor.
“I [got to] throw Jake Gyllenhaal over the bar, so that was pretty fun. I loved it,” McGregor told Page Six at the film’s premiere in March.
The fighter, 35, also commended the actor who “took one or two wallops” while filming but “gave back as well.”
“We had a great rapport. He was very patient with me, very helpful,” McGregor added.
