Jake Gyllenhaal Would ‘Love’ to Star in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ on Broadway

Jake Gyllenhaal is determined to star in another Broadway musical.

There are so many musicals I love so deeply, Gyllenhaal, who starred in a revival of Sunday in the Park With George with Annaleigh Ashford in 2017, told Variety at the Los Angeles premiere of his new action drama The Covenant on Monday evening. At some point, Ive always loved Fiddler on the Roof. Id love to do that.

Gyllenhaals godmother, Jamie Lee Curtis, was at The Covenant premiere and recalled how the actor was supposed to star as Tevye in a school production of Fiddler when he was a high school senior. He left the show when he was offered the lead in the 1999 drama October Sky.

I knew then how committed he was to being an actor because most people wouldnt give up that high school slot for a little indie movie. Most people would be like, No, Im going to star in the high school musical, Curtis said. I knew then that that was a dedication to the art form that was different than just being super talented and getting a lot of attention.

In The Covenant, directed and co-written by Guy Ritchie, Gyllenhaal plays an Army sergeant during the war in Afghanistan. After hes injured, he returns to the region to help his units translator (Dar Salim) escape the Taliban to come to the U.S.

In one brutal sequence, Gyllenhaals injured character is brought to safety by the translator over treacherous desert terrain.

Guy gave me a 60-page script but he never told me that he was going to be filming that section at the end of every day me being dragged with fake blood and rocks and dirt and water being thrown in my face pretty much for an hour and a half every day, Gyllenhaal recalled. Wed put me on the cart, turn me upside-down and Dar would push and pull me up and down hills.

Salim insisted on doing all the pushing and pulling on his own, even when Ritchie offered a stuntman to do the job.

I was adamant, Salim said. I was like, No, let me do it. Some of the best pushing sequences were when a stunt guy was supposed to do it but I did it I wouldnt miss the chance to do the physical stuff myself.