It doesn’t matter if you’re Joe Schmo or Jake Gyllenhaal, when it comes to making progress in the gym, there’s no faking it. That’s the message that Southpawdirector Antoine Fuqua drilled home for Gyllenhaal as he embarked on the physical transformation needed for his new film. As part of the movie’s promotion, the Weinstein Company released some behind-the-scenes footage of Gyllenhaal and Fuqua’s boxing workouts — yes, the director worked the heavy bags too!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uIZ6SDCuYkY
“Antoine [Fuqua] decided that he would come with me on the physical journey,” Gyllenhaal says in the video. “It was amazing to have your director there with you pushing you every day … that motivation, that sacrifice is what drove both of us.”
It’s plain to see that neither one of the men was willing to throw in the towel. Earlier this year, Fuqua remarked on Gyllenhaal’s training in Floyd Mayweather’s gym in Vegas, and the Church Gym in New York. Fuqua had him train against real fighters in realistic situations to “turn him into a beast.”
“You have to train like a fighter,” Fuqua says. “You have to be in the gym twice a day, everyday, even on Sundays.”
