'Everest' will feature Jake Gyllenhaal as American mountaineer and expedition leader Scott Fischer. The actor revealed his greatest fears such as facing mortality, adventures he went through with director Baltasar Kormakur and the rest of the cast and crew while filming, and preparing for one of his most challenging roles yet.
Gyllenhaal takes on another extreme role as Scott Fischer, one of the mountaineers and explorers who passed away during the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. The film focuses on the struggle of two expedition groups as they attempt survival in the mountains of Nepal. The first group is led by Gyllenhaal's Scott and the other by Jason Clarke's Rob Hall.
The Oscar-nominee showed his personal and insightful side during interviews promoting his new drama-thriller film. According to the News.com.au, he revealed that his age has prompted him to be more in touch with his mortality as well as placing more value with the more important things in life - such as having his own family. He may have gone through quite a lot during his experience working on 'Everest' but he admitted that he is most terrified with the idea of not living life to the fullest.
Principal photography took the cast and crew to several stunning locations worldwide. This included Iceland, the Dolomites as well as on-location in Nepal. The actor confessed that he had to go through physical and mental strain during filming especially since he suffered from a fear of heights.
In another article by the Mirror, he said that his director took them up into the mountains where they had to endure freezing weather with wind, snow and ice combined. Gyllenhaal also revealed that he prepared for his role as Fischer as best as he could and even met the mountaineer's real-life children Andy and Katie.
He said, "Because Scott is no longer with us, I felt an enormous responsibility to his memory and to bring as much authenticity and as much of his spirit to my work on the film... I met with his children and that was very important to me in understanding the close bond he had with them."
According to The Wrap, Kormakur admitted that he pushed his cast to the limits to make the project as authentic as possible. He took his actors 16,000 feet high up into the mountains where they succumbed to altitude sickness and had to be taken down by helicopter. It was also reported that he filmed the first six weeks of the movie in below zero temperatures, specifically at -30 degrees Celsius.
'Everest' in an upcoming adventure, drama and thriller film scheduled to be released on September 25, 2015. It is based on the events of the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest that led to the death of several climbers. It stars an ensemble cast of Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Keira Knightley, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Sam Worthington, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly and Emily Watson among others.
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