A Little Left

Now that Southpaw has wrapped, it looks like embargo has been lifted from the stories and looks from the set.

The Pittsburgh Gazette got a chance to talk to director Antoine Fuqua about the movie and he gave them a sneak peek of Jake as Billy Hope on his cell phone.

“He looks like a fighter. He’s got tattoos. He’s got everything. He’s got the eyes kind of messed up, the nose is different. Oh, yeah, he looks rough. He looks tough,”

Although the story is about a boxer, the real story is about a father and daughter. “Ultimately, the story’s about a father and daughter coming to terms with mourning and coming to terms with, ‘Who’s the parent?’ Learning how to be a parent, learning how to be a father, in particular,”

Fuqua "said the story “really hit my heart. It’s a sports movie but it’s more about the father, learning how to be a dad without the mom when tragedy happens.”

“This movie is forcing this man to learn how to be a dad and learn how to control his anger. In the boxing world, of course, it’s OK to be angry and be on the edge and be violent because you get paid for it. In the real world, you can’t go around punching people; it affects everyone.” Billy’s anger and rage as a fighter will destroy him or the most precious part of his life — his daughter — if he cannot tame his temper.

Southpaw  had a tight shooting schedule of just 40 days in Pennsylvania and the article said a few more days at an undisclosed location, and even tighter post production schedule.  Director Fuqua almost has to cut and edit it simultaneously to meet the deadline from the Weinstein Group to have Southpaw in theaters this December. 

With Nightcrawler and Southpaw it looks like Jake definitely has a one to two punch for this year's award season.

Add Another Punch

A little more star power punch has been added to Southpaw.

Oscar winner Forrest Whitaker is in talks to join the cast.

Whitaker is in talks to play the other lead of the movie,  Titus ‘Tick’ Willis, a former fighter who was forced to retire after losing an eye and now trains amateur fighters.

Jake is set to play Billy “The Great” Hope, a left-handed prizefighter who wins a title but suffers a tragedy soon after and must put his life back together to earn the respect of his young daughter.

While the movie is about a boxer, “the heart of the movie is about a man learning to be a father.”

And it looks like Jake has started the months of hard work to become the welterweight winner.  He was spotted out doing some ring work in New York this week. 

Punch and Jakey

The news of Jake cutting his hand after punching a mirror during filming a scene for Nightcrawler shows there was an intensity on set, be it from the script or just Jake having a moment, but this isn't the first time there has been something like this to happen with Jake and his movies.

Some might remember the very intense scene in Jarhead between Jake and Brian Geraghty  when Jake's character Swofford snaps first holding his gun up  to Brian's character and then grabbing Brian's gun and pointing it at his own mouth screaming to pull the trigger.  During the filming of the scene Brian accidentally chipped Jake's tooth and with Jake so into the moment found him literally beating up his co-star. "And so I, for some reason, just started hitting him, and I just got so angry that he had chipped my tooth. And I just started hitting him. And we didn't talk for like a month, actually, after that. It's actually a testament to Brian because Brian is nothing like the character he plays. He's just amazing in that scene." Brian described it as: "Well we had a little time apart from ourselves but I mean, it was a very intense scene where he almost kills my character. ...Everything was fine. We took it to the limit. Hopefully when you see the film you’ll acknowledge that. We’re better for it."

Jake was so intense during the whole shoot he also had issues with his future brother-in-law Peter, who he also didn't speak to for a month and ended up breaking a rib of Peter's during a scene. So intensity is nothing new for Jake.

But it's not the accident itself that set the bells off  here,  is some of the other details that has OMG asking questions.

 Like -

Nightcrawler was supposed to be a a 28 day shoot in Oct. why is Jake still filming two weeks later?

How far behind must they be if they had a filming schedule that lasted 18 hours?

What happened in October that set them back so much?  Schedules? Days off? Budgets? Darkness? Too many rainy days in Southern California?

Is Nightcrawler the real reason that Everest isn't set to start shooting until January 5th?

Where do you come up with the money to pay for going over schedule for this many days? Especially on a movie that they have said is being made on a very small tight budget?

And with Jake being one of the executive producers for Nightcrawler, doesn't he have a little more control over the schedule and the run over? Or is that part of the reason it's running over?



Just one more thing - Jake, bud,  if you didn't want to "teach her" how to make Thanksgiving dinner there are other ways of getting out of it.