Before major mainstream titles with “Sicario,” “Arrival,” and “Blade Runner 2049,” filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s first forays into U.S. filmmaking was a pair of smaller-scale, highly acclaimed and quite different features – “Prisoners” and “Enemy”.
Both films starred Jake Gyllenhaal offering two of his greatest performances to date with very distinct characters (or dual characters in terms of “Enemy”). The pair sadly haven’t worked together since.
That could be about to change as, whilst speaking with cinematographer Roger Deakins on the Team Deakins podcast (via The Playlist), Gyllenhaal talked about his relationship with Villeneuve before “Enemy” began production and how the two can’t wait to work together again:
“I was like, ‘What!’ and Denis looked at me and was like, ‘You have to do this movie’. Denis told me he had to make this movie and he didn’t know why. I just remember Denis saying, ‘I have to make this movie and I have to make it with you. I can find someone else to do it but I can’t get you out of my mind to do it’. That’s very rare.
Denis, to this day, there is something we are working on now and he just writes me, ‘I can’t wait to work with you again.’ And I feel the same way. There are these people you find in your life where you just have these connections. That began that connection.”
Villeneuve is currently busy finishing up the first film in his planned two-part big-budget epic “Dune” adaptation, the second has not yet been greenlit. Villeneuve could easily slip in a smaller project next following “Dune”.
