Jake Gyllenhaal kicked off his career playing sensitive men in films likeDonnie DarkandZodiac —characters with enormous fragility, though there was always a demented gleam in their eyes. But after 25 years as a leading man, his parts now tend to be beefier, punchier, and more explicitly unhinged — for example, his role as reluctant skull-cracker Elwood Dalton in the remake ofRoad House(the movie in which Patrick Swayze pulled out a man's throat). Through a series of twists and turns, he's become an action star, drawn to a genre that's arguably never been more vital to Hollywood than right now. Bilge Ebiri spoke to Gyllenhaal about his unlikely turn for the cover story of Vulture's first digital issue,The Action Edition. The profile arrives alongside our second annualStunt Awards, an enormous critical examination of the100 fights that shaped action cinema, and more conversations with the performers and filmmakers who make brawls, chases, and explosions into art.
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