Jake Gyllenhaal's legal blindness helps him in movie roles
Jake Gyllenhaal sees some benefits to being legally blind.
The "Road House" actor, 43, said his eyesight has been "advantageous" to his movie career, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Wednesday.
"I've never known anything else," he said. "When I can't see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it's a place where I can be with myself."
The "Saturday Night Live" season finale host was born with a naturally corrected lazy eye, has been wearing intensive corrective lenses since he was 6 years old and has 20/1250 vision.
Gyllenhaal has used his blindness to his benefit while filming. He recalled how, while shooting his 2015 film "Southpaw," he removed his contacts in order to listen better during a difficult scene when police tell his character, Billy Hope, that his wife, Maureen, has died.
The actor also opened up about how he chooses his film roles, telling the outlet that he seeks projects that "freak me out a bit … The feeling I want to have is, can I do it? That it's going to ask of me things that I don’t know about myself yet."
In March, the Oscar nominee revealed he sliced his hand with glass and developed a staph infection while filming the remake of the 1989 action movie starring Patrick Swayze.
'Road House' revisited: How Jake Gyllenhaal remake compares to Patrick Swayze cult classic
He told "Armchair Expert" host Dax Shepard that, during one sequence where his character jumps over a bar, his hand was legitimately sliced by "a lot" of glass, but he continued shooting.
"I put my hand on the bar ... straight glass," he recalled, adding, "I felt the glass go into my hand. ... I remember the feeling. I went, 'That's a lot of glass,' and I just finished the ... take."
Jake Gyllenhaal got a staph infection making 'Road House,' says his 'whole arm swelled up'
Gyllenhaal said injuries like these happened "all the time" on the set of the movie and revealed he also developed a staph infection. "My whole arm swelled up, and it ended up being staph," he said.
He told USA TODAY, while filming a fight scene, co-star Conor McGregor kept brawling, unaware they weren't being filmed.
"Two times in a row, he just came at me and kicked me with a roundhouse," Gyllenhaal recalled. "I had to be like, 'We're not on camera. You know that?' And he'd be like, 'Oh, sorry! I didn't know!' There was a learning curve."
Jake Gyllenhaal got a staph infection making 'Road House,' says his 'whole arm swelled up'
There were "lots of little injuries, but nothing too serious," Gyllenhaal said. McGregor "cracked a few of the stunt guys" and got truly smacked in the face by a truck door, courtesy of Gyllenhaal.
"I had a black eye and everything from it," McGregor said. Director Doug Liman "was like, 'Do it again! It wasn't real enough.' I was like, I have … a big welt on my eye now. We had a great time filming, a lot of fun."
Contributing: Erin Jensen and Brendan Morrow
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is Jake Gyllenhaal blind? Actor talks using limited vision for movies
