‘Suddenly’: the movie that fell apart in four days because Jake Gyllenhaal wanted to slap a fish
The latest evolution in the career of Jake Gyllenhaal has placed shirtless action heroism at the forefront, but in the period immediately preceding his recent reinvention, the actor went out of his way to showcase his range and versatility.
It was a stretch that saw the star deliver a number of wildly disparate but equally engaging turns in films like Denis Villeneueve’s duo Enemy and Prisoners, Dan Gilroy’s chilling Nightcrawler, Antoine Fuqua’s boxing drama Southpaw, Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, and Bong Joon-ho’s Okja.
However, after swearing himself off the blockbuster business following the dismal Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Gyllenhaal embraced escapism all over again by racking up Spider-Man: Far From Home, Michael Bay’s Ambulance, Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, and Doug Liman’s Road House in quick succession.
Co-writer and director Thomas Bidegain’s English-language debut Suddenly was supposed to fall in the middle of that aforementioned run, only for the filmmaker to reveal that his leading man behaved in a manner that was unbecoming of an established Hollywood star. In fact, it was downright bizarre.
The adaptation of Isabelle Autissier’s novel Soudain Seuls follows a couple trying to survive on a deserted island, putting their relationship under the microscope as they struggle to stay alive. Gyllenhaal and Vanessa Kirby were locked for the lead roles. The cast and crew pitched up in Iceland to begin principal photography before all hell broke loose.
According to Bidegain, Gyllenhaal insisted on reading the script in an accent reminiscent of cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew, requested that his rental car could be any other colour than red or white, demanded crew members sleep in their cars to prevent the potential transmission of Covid, and stumbled upon a new way of interpreting the story after going for a stroll in the woods where he met a horse, which inspired him to play a Greta Thunberg speech during a production meeting while shedding tears at the emotionality of it all.
Perhaps the most bizarre suggestion for how to get a handle on his character was Gyllenhaal’s insistence that one scene would be much better served if he slapped a fish. Why? Nobody really seems to know, but it quickly became clear that Suddenly was never going to work in its current iteration.
Inexplicably, Bidegain intimated that he was singled out as the issue, with Kirby reportedly attempting to purchase the script so that she and Gyllenhaal could make it without him. Understandably, he refused, and it quickly dawned on the auteur that maybe he was better off avoiding the trappings of Hollywood.
“It’s normal when there are changes to the script before shooting, but this was different,” he explained to Variety. “We each had our own idea of what the message of the film was. I tried to smooth things over once, twice, and then I just realized it wasn’t going to work out, so it had to stop.”
After four days in Iceland, Suddenly was scrapped, sending Bidegain back to the drawing board. Although he denied Gyllenhaal’s erratic behaviour was the reason it fell apart, he did acknowledge that the creative differences between himself and the proposed stars were completely irreconcilable.
On the plus side, he put the pieces back together and made the film in his native France, with Mélanie Thierry and Gilles Lellouche taking over.
