David Fincher Describes Tension With Jake Gyllenhaal On Zodiac Set

Filmmaker David Fincher has described some of the tension that he experienced with Jake Gyllenhaal on the set of his 2007 thriller, Zodiac. The film was a hit for Fincher and told the true story of the Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Done in Fincher’s inimitable style and tone, Zodiac left a particularly uneasy imprint on audiences—likely because the real-life killer was never found, even after boasting to authorities and media alike that he murdered 37 people. At the time of production, both Gyllenhaal and Fincher were in exciting places in their respective careers. Fincher was still riding off of big successes like Se7en, The Game, and Fight Club, while Gyllenhaal was arguably still buzzing from his 2006 Oscar nomination for his performance in the highly acclaimed Brokeback Mountain. Any project that brought the two together was likely to have some serious traction, but as things turned out, Gyllenhaal and Fincher’s on-set relationship proved anything but perfect.

As Fincher prepares for the release of his latest film, Mank, he’s taken the time to speak with The New York Times about the on-set tensions he experienced with Gyllenhaal during the Zodiac shoot. The issues between the two creatives weren’t particularly well-known during the film’s theatrical run and subsequent award nominations, but it’s now clear there were problems. Thirteen years later, Fincher, though apologetic, remains open about just how important it is for him to above all, tell a great story:

“Jake was in the unenviable position of being very young and having a lot of people vie for his attention, while working for someone who does not allow you to take a day off. I believe you have to have everything out of your peripheral vision.” But “I think Jake’s philosophy was informed by — look, he’d made a bunch of movies, even as a child, but I don’t think he’d ever been asked to concentrate on minutiae, and I think he was very distracted. He had a lot of people whispering that ‘Jarhead’” was going to be this massive movie and put him in this other league, and every weekend he was being pulled to go to the Santa Barbara film festival and the Palm Springs film festival and the [expletive] Catalina film festival. And when he’d show up for work, he was very scattered.

I don’t want to make excuses for my behavior. There are definitely times when I can be confrontational if I see someone slacking. People go through rough patches all the time. I do. So I try to be compassionate about it. But. It’s: Four. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars. A day. And we might not get a chance to come back and do it again. I tell actors all the time: I’m not going to cut around your hangover, I’m not going to cut around your dog dying, I’m not going to cut around the fact that you just fired your agent or your agent just fired you. Once you get here, the only thing I care about is, Did we tell the story?”

Though blunt, Fincher’s comments are a testament to just how hardworking and devoted he is to whatever project he happens to be working on. It’s not at all unusual for big-name Hollywood stars to clash with their directors from time to time, and it sounds as though Gyllenhaal was in a particularly challenging, yet promising time in his career. Nonetheless, Fincher’s responsibilities as a director are immense and, given Zodiac’s significant bulk and subject matter, the production certainly wouldn’t have been a straightforward, simple one.

As far as directors being demanding about the story that needs to be told, Fincher can hardly be faulted. Only a bad filmmaker would have allowed Zodiac’s production to take a backseat to the demands of Gyllenhaal’s entourage. While Zodiac may not be Fincher’s best work, from the sounds of it, the production would have been far worse had Fincher been less upfront and more flexible with Gyllenhaal.

Source: The New York Times

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Mike Jones
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Mike Jones is an author, screenwriter, world traveller and cinephile. His work has been featured in print and online in a variety of publications, and he’s also a Berlinale Talents alumnus. Cinema has always moved him in a big way and aside from having seen The Talented Mr Ripley more times than any other living person, he maintains a pretty darn healthy physical media collection. His favourite filmmakers include: Jordan Peele, David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Leigh, Steven Spielberg, the Dardenne Brothers, Noah Baumbach, Michael Haneke, Barry Jenkins and Andrea Arnold. Often jet-lagged, Mike once turned down a certain A-list celebrity’s offer to join them for a night of partying after a strange encounter in an airport.

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