TORONTO - As an Oscar-nominated actor, "Nightcrawler" star Jake Gyllenhaal is used to being photographed by people he doesn't know. He also turns the tables on occasion and shoots photos of strangers himself.
The star says if he sees someone wearing an outfit he thinks will work for a character he's playing, he'll take a snap.
"I saw this guy with a camera on Sunset Boulevard, one of these big hulking cameras, wearing this crazy outfit and I pulled my car around in a U-turn and started to follow him to try and take a picture of him and he thought I was crazy," Gyllenhaal said at last month's Toronto International Film Festival.
The photos helped Gyllenhaal inhabit his "Nightcrawler" character Lou Bloom, a petty criminal who turns into a deranged Los Angeles paparazzo, taking a desperate assistant (Riz Ahmed) along for the ride. Rene Russo, meanwhile, plays a tough-as-nails news producer who comes to rely on Lou's footage when it starts to boost ratings at her TV station.
Gyllenhaal lost some 30 pounds to play the role, taking up running and eating little more than chewing gum during the shoot. The "Brokeback Mountain" actor said he drew on the image of a coyote to find the essence of Lou.
"In Los Angeles there are all these attacks ... coyotes always attack dogs," said Gyllenhaal. "They're these skinny strange animals pouncing around and they have this killer instinct. ... They look at you in this way like they would eat you. They prey on the desperate."
If Lou is a coyote, director Dan Gilroy had a different animal in mind for Ahmed's character.
"He said this character is a three-legged dog," said the British actor, also at the fest. "He's just trying to survive, he's looking for scraps and he's looking for love but he's used to being kicked."
Ahmed, whose previous films include "Four Lions," said he was drawn to "Nightcrawler" because it was something completely different.
"The project was just bold, it's just got balls. It's provocative, it's subversive, it's satirical," he said. "Those are all the things that excited me."
Indeed, with its dark tone and distinctive tone, "Nightcrawler" feels like something fresh on the cinematic landscape. Ahmed says he struggled to think of a similar film, musing that it's a combination of "Network" and "American Psycho."
The project's uniqueness was enough to bring the little-seen Russo back onscreen. The "Lethal Weapon" actress is married to director Gilroy, who wrote the part specifically for his wife. His twin brother John, meanwhile, is an editor on "Nightcrawler" and older brother Tony a producer.
"(Dan) said to me: 'I'm going to write you a part," Russo recalled at the film festival. "I said OK. I mean how many movies really get made and Danny had been struggling forever. He's got so many amazing scripts and stories ... but it's a tough business and I said OK, go for it. And then I read the script and I thought: 'Oh my God this is so good but we've been disappointed that I don't get my hopes up."'
Asked about the dearth of projects for actresses her age, Russo was blunt: "It's the reason I don't work. If I'm getting up at 4:30 in the morning and putting makeup on my face I'm not getting up for just anything. I'm not interested."
"Nightcrawler" seems to be a passion project for all involved and received strong reviews during the film festival. It's just the latest in a series of edgy roles taken on by Gyllenhaal, who is now working with Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee on the upcoming "Demolition."
He's employing his usual costume research.
"I saw this guy somewhere and he was wearing a thing that I thought was really interesting and I took a picture of him and the guy thought I was a total weirdo and I sent it to Jean-Marc and said 'What do you think?" said Gyllenhaal.
"I asked this one guy the other day and he looked at me like I was like totally nuts and I was like, no I'm an actor ... and he was like, OK, dude."
"Nightcrawler" opens Friday.
