Jake Gyllenhaal was born with a lazy eye that naturally resolved and has been wearing intensive corrective lenses since he was about 6.
To Jake Gyllenhaal, his blindness is an acting advantage.
The Road House star, 43, recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how he's used his legal blindness in his acting. Gyllenhaal has been wearing intensive corrective lenses since he was about 6 years old, and was born with a lazy eye that naturally resolved.
"I like to think it's advantageous," he told the outlet of having a 20/1250 prescription. "I've never known anything else. When I can't see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it's a place where I can be with myself."
Gyllenhaal said his blindness sometimes improves his performance. For example, when police told his character that his wife died in the 2015 boxing movie Southpaw, Gyllenhaal removed his contacts to force himself to listen closely.
This isn't the first time Gyllenhaal has discussed his legal blindness. In 2017, he spoke to The Telegraph about how wearing Coke bottle-deep spectacles at school in Los Angeles caused unwanted attention and teasing in school.
"I was an easy target," he told the outlet of his school years. "And I was always a sensitive kid."
One subject he's less open about is his girlfriend, French model Jeanne Cadieu, 26, and when he might marry her.
"I'm supposed to tell The Hollywood Reporter that? I'm not going to give you timing…" he told The Hollywood Reporter when asked when they are going to tie the knot. "I think we all get into that space of work, work, work, and for a long time my career took precedence, but I'm at a point in my life where I realize that family really is the only thing that matters to me."
This echoes what he said about his longtime love in a 2020 interview with British Vogue.
"I'm interested in my life, even more so than my work. I've reached a point in my career where I feel hungry in a different way. I've seen how much of my life I've neglected as a result of being committed to that work and that idea," he told the outlet at the time. "[I've] lightened up. Seeing life as something that is, you know, fleeting, and the world being as it is now. I've turned to my family, I've turned to my friends and I've turned to love. I'm a little less interested in the work, I would say, and more interested in that."
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