Actor Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal, better known as Jake Gyllenhaal, was born on December 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner, Jake and his sister Maggie have been acting since childhood. Some of Gyllenhaal’s earlier films included City Slickers, in which he played Billy Crystal’s son, and A Dangerous Woman, directed by his father.
In order to make the trandformation from child to adult actor, Gyllenhaal purposefully passed over teen fare for such films as 1999’s October Sky and Donnie Darko (2001), co-starring Drew Barrymore and sister Maggie, for which he earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
