Road House: Jake Gyllenhaal on Getting ‘Clocked’ by Conor McGregor, Training for ‘UFC Debut'
Jake Gyllenhaal learned a lot from filming his latest movie, including what's it like to be punched in the face by MMA superstar Conor McGregor.
Hollywood joined forces with the UFC in director Doug Liman's vision of 'Road House', a remake of the 1989 movie starring the late Patrick Swayze. Former UFC Champion McGregor makes his acting debut alongside the experienced Gyllenhaal.
Gyllenhaal plays 'Elwood Dalton', an ex-UFC fighter who is hired to protect a roadhouse in the Florida Keys against the likes of McGregor's 'Knox' and other baddies.
The A-list actor trained like an actual fighter for the role and definitely looked the part on his way into the Octagon to film a live fight sequence in front of 19,000 fans at UFC 285.
"Is this CGI or what am I looking at?" Jimmy Fallon said on 'The Tonight Show' of Gyllenhaal's physique for 'Road House'. "The photo got, 'Ow!'. All the reviews are like, 'Ow!' I've never seen anyone have 13 abs. How is it possible?"
"There was a lot of training," Gyllenhaal replied. "But like when I got word that cause Conor McGregor's in the movie with me and when I got word that he was gonna be doing it, I was super psyched cause they chased him for a long time to play the part. But then I got totally terrified and I thought, 'Oh god, I actually have to fake fight this guy and I gotta look like I can.
"I stayed in pretty good shape, but we trained for two months, pretty hard grappling, a lot of MMA and then also just like getting shape, you know?"
Unfortunately for the shredded Gyllenhaal, one of his 'fake fights' with first-time actor McGregor actually flew off the script.
"By mistake, he clocked me in the face," Gyllenhaal recalled of co-star McGregor. "We would do a take, we were like fighting and fake fighting and fake fighting and then we'd go watch the monitor to see it back, to see what worked. And he was always great with me. He would show me, tell me do things and like, 'Oh, turn your hand, move a little bit more this way to try and make look more real'.
"And it was late cause we shot a lot of these fight scenes at night. So it was like 3:00 AM and he was talking to me really close and he's like, 'asshole, like that left hook looks good, but then when you do it, boom like that,' and he hit me by mistake. I was almost like, oh!' He was like, 'Oh!'
Of course, there were no hard feelings about the accidental strike as Conor McGregor details Gyllenhaal is a "consummate professional" and while he may not be a pro fighter, the UFC star says the actor can dish it as well as he can take it.
"It's his 75th movie and he's also in good shape," McGregor said of Gyllenhaal on 'Good Morning Britain'. "He can throw a punch. He's done a great movie, Southpaw, it's not like he's novice in throwing his punches either.
"We had an amazing rapport on set and a, a friend for life, Mr. Gyllenhaal is now, and I'm very, very grateful and a lucky, a lucky Irish man to land on my feet in a position I did with Jake Gyllenhaal, with Doug Liman, who was a phenomenal director."
You can watch 'Road House' this Thursday, which streams exclusively on Prime Video.
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