Director Dan Gilroy has teamed up with talented actor Jake Gyllenhaal in the film Nightcrawler, which is a dark tale about a persistent news reporter named Lou Bloom, who has a messed up view of morality.
Empire Online just talked to the director, who offered eight interesting details to some key scenes from the movie:
1. The Mirror Smash
This scene is actually unplanned but worked really well with the film, although Gyllenhaal injured his fingers pretty badly because of it. The whole crew only had one day to shoot of all Bloom's apartment scenes, so there was a lot on their plate.
"When we got the bathroom, it was very late at night, and we'd been shooting at that point for 14 hours. Jake was in the bathroom, and his character at that point in the story was upset because Nina (Rene Russo) had just yelled at him and Lou was going to react to that to some degree. So breaking the mirror was not planned - Jake just slammed the mirror, and I didn't think anything was wrong, but he came out and he'd sliced the ball of the thumb on his left hand, cutting off some skin, maybe an inch and a half long and an inch across. It was extremely bloody," the director shared
2. The Opening Salvage Yard Scene
Gilroy was really appreciative of the fact that Gyllenhaal learned his script so quickly, and that was the reason why they were able to play around the film. "Jake gave us that ability. Jake gave us that gift, that gift of so much more time to experiment and explore," he said.
His character has an unforgettable line, which was: "My motto is if you want to win the lottery you've got to make money to get a ticket." It was said by Bloom during the opening salvage yard scene, and Gyllenhaal had the brilliant idea of saying the same line in different locations. "So after the movie wrapped, we edited together this viral trailer for YouTube, using five different versions of Jake doing that speech in different locations," shared Gilroy.
3. Bloom Enters a House Illegally for the First Time
The director revealed that Gyllenhaal put a lot of creative inputs into the film, such as suggesting that his character lose 27 pounds.
"Two weeks from shooting, we were talking about the hair for the character. I always imagined the hair would be short, military, but Jake said, 'I've got this longer hair, why don't we keep it?' Then a week before shooting he said, 'What if every time I do something larcenous, I put my hair into a little bun?' It all makes sense now, and it might even seem like a clever choice, but there were people at the time who were very against it," he admitted.
4. Bloom Gets a Job Offer from Joe Loder
Gilroy really got a kick from writing that scene, since he loved the character Bill Paxton played. "I always imagined that Bill's character, Joe Loder, was T1, and Lou is the evolutionary new model, T2. Here's Joe Loder in all of his own nastiness, and we've seen this new creature that's come to usurp him. So I saw it as an evolutionary thing," he said.
What's more, Paxton cannot help but laugh in between takes because of Gyllenhaal. "He'd come up to me and say, 'Oh my God! Jake is acting totally crazy, this is wild!' Literally, probably half a dozen times. 'I'm having trouble keeping a straight face!' He's a funny guy, Bill," said Gilroy.
5. The Granada Hills Home
Gilroy describes the home as having a "magical, mystical quality" that was perfect for the film, but because they filmed a gruesome scene in it, they destroyed a white carpet worth $10,000.
6. The Date Scene
"We had one full day for the date scene. We spent more hours going over that scene than any other in the film," shared Gilroy. He said they spent a lot of time in the scene, but it was worth it because two complex characters managed to strip down their facets and showed a different side to them.
"Nina is revealed to be somebody who's extremely vulnerable and Lou is revealed to be a brilliant monster. I liked how the power completely shifted in that scene," gushed the director.
7. The Diner Shoot-Out
They blocked out the shoot-out sequence from the diner itself and the camera men were concerned how the cameras were going to get inside the diner. "We said, 'There aren't going to be any cameras inside the diner' They couldn't understand how the biggest spend in the film was all being shot from outside. People were very surprised at the way we shot it. Up until the gunfire, we're watching the action all from these little viewfinders," he revealed.
8. The Car Chase
Most car chases are fake, but Gyllenhaal actually did a lot of driving for the film. "The scene at the end of the chase, when the red Challenger crashes, and the car spins around? That's Jake driving. He's a great driver," said Gilroy.
