Spider-Man: Far From Home star Jake Gyllenhaal has said he’s ‘lucky’ to have had fake cinematic sex with Anne Hathaway on two separate occasions.
In what is arguably a slightly weird compliment, Gyllenhaal praised Hathaway’s ‘rhythm’ in the saucy scenes.
The pair have appeared as lovers in both films they have co-starred in.
They first collaborated on Ang Lee’s seminal 2005 film Brokeback Mountain.
Gyllenhaal played closeted gay cowboy Jack Twist, while Hathaway appeared as his wife Lureen Newsome.
With Jack’s heart firmly set on Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar, his character didn’t have much of a spark with Hathaway’s, despite them sharing a sex scene.
This was set to change in 2010’s Love & Other Drugs, where Gyllenhaal played Jamie Randall, a smarmy Pfizer salesman whose life is transformed when he meets Hathaway’s Maggie Murdock, who suffers from early on-set Parkinson’s.
While the film wasn’t universally loved – scoring just 49 percent on Rotten Tomatoes – critics couldn’t help but praise Gyllenhaal and Hathaway’s electric chemistry.
Anne Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain. Credit: Focus Features
One critic noted the film ‘lacks a certain something, but not chemistry between Jake and Anne; they set off real sparks’.
Behind the scenes, Gyllenhaal said he felt comfortable performing love scenes with Hathaway after working with her on similar bedroom scenes previously.
During the press tour for Love and Other Drugs, he said: “I’m lucky. Annie and I had already had sex on film in Brokeback Mountain, so I wasn’t too nervous.
“There’s something about the way Annie and I both work which is inherently very musical.
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“It’s all about rhythm. There’s a rhythm to writing, there’s a rhythm to sports and there’s a rhythm to sex.
“I recommend getting in bed with Anne Hathaway to any man.”
Hathaway, for her part, recalled on the press tour for the film how one of her ‘favourite memories’ from shooting involved her getting ‘unnecessarily naked’ in front of other cast and crew.
Speaking about shooting a scene where Maggie arrives at James’ flat and accidentally exposes herself to his flatmate, Hathaway recalled: “We’d been shooting for a few hours, the ice was broken and everything was fine, we were just back from lunch and I’d gone behind the set and was talking to someone.
“Then all of a sudden someone whispers ‘Annie you’re on!’ and I think because they were whispering I thought we were shooting, so I ran in and dropped [my coat] and I’m just standing there and I see Jake kind of freeze and go ‘huh?’ and I realise the camera is in a different place and we’re still rehearsing and that I got naked unnecessarily in front of everyone!
“So then I pulled my trench coat on very quickly and it was obviously a case of life imitating art!”
