Serial killer movie gets in your head

May 18 2007 By The Evening Chronicle

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal has made a name for himself with intense brooding roles in films such as Donnie Darko, Moonlight Mile and Brokeback Mountain.

But the versatile young star reckons his latest movie freaked even him out. Zodiac tells the true story of a serial killer who brought fear to the streets of San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 70s and Jake admits the murders were so gruesome the film left him emotionally shattered.

"They terrified me," he says of the killings, for which the true toll might never be known, since the murderer has never been caught. "I didn't know anything about the story before I started the film but the more I read about it the more fascinated I became. There are some movies about serial killers that get into your head, this is definitely one."

Zodiac, as the killer came to be known, ran rings around cops and journalists by sending a series of baffling ciphers and letters to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, supposedly giving clues to his movements.

Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist on the paper, became fascinated by the case and when the cops had virtually given up, set out to investigate the killings himself.

Jake, who takes the lead role as Graysmith, met his real-life alter ego as part of his research and says he genuinely feared a face-to-face encounter with the man who had been so close to the grizzly murders. "You think, `What sort of a guy pursues a serial killer by choice?', so I really expected to meet this very dark guy. But he turned out to be sweet and gentle and kind, ridiculously complimentary - nothing I expected."

Zodiac is something of a departure for the 26-year-old actor, more used to appearing in sensitive, thought-provoking films. However, Jake has proved he's more than willing to push back the boundaries, particularly with his critically acclaimed performances as a gay cowboy in the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain and as a tough but troubled US Marine in the box office hit Jarhead. But despite his willingness to take on a variety of roles, the star admits he'd be very reluctant to slip back into the world of Zodiac.