TIFF: Jake Gyllenhaal's 'Demolition' man has all the feels and is a dance machine

Jake Gyllenhaal came out swinging sledgehammers — literally and emotionally — on Thursday night with the world premiere of his new movie Demolition at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film by director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) is heartbreaking and often humorous as Gyllenhaal's character Davis Mitchell has trouble dealing with the death of his wife. Instead of reaching out to someone, he gets his thoughts out in a complaint letter directed to the company whose vending machine "ate" his peanut M&Ms, and Davis finds a confidante in a customer-service woman named Karen (Naomi Watts) who receives his snail mail.

Gyllenhaal found a patience and insular quality to Davis and was more than willing to go on a "search" with him:
"This is about a guy who really doesn’t know what he feels or how he feels because he's been mired and locked in convention for so long. What I loved about it is it’s a story that begins the movie in the conventional way and ends the movie through an unconventional journey, feeling however he’s supposed to feel and not how society’s told him to feel. That’s a bit uncomfortable, particularly as an actor, to try and figure out not what you’ve been told grief is supposed to be but just discovering as you go."

And his character REALLY likes to destroy household items — the movie title isn't just a coincidence. Gyllenhaal explains how in one scene Davis and Karen's son (Judah Lewis) go to town with the destruction on half of a house that Vallée had created during the New York shoot:
"He built an entire half of a house and then he gave me and Judah tools and we destroyed the house ourselves. He destroyed a couple things because he needed to after spending so much time preparing it, and he probably looked forward to breaking some windows."
Gyllenhaal also was able to dance a little bit when Davis has a sort of breakthrough in the movie and it's one of very moments of expression for the character. But it's a doozy, though Gyllenhaal was a tad wary of showing off his hoofing:
"I was always looking on the schedule as to when the dancing was going to be because I was mostly just terrified. ... I didn’t know even know how much I wanted to express — we’d pushed so much down in the process that when (Vallée) allowed it, he was like, 'Here is your little ticket to ride and go.’ It’s all him and his strange little master plan he has."

BONUS TIME!

Fun Jake fact: When he was a little boy, Gyllenhaal learned how to write a complaint letter at school — in a time before Yelp — and sent his angry missive to Kentucky Fried Chicken after they discontinued the same of tasty little mini sliders called Chicken Littles. He's happy to know they're back these days:

"I think I indirectly had something to do with that. It’s empowering and I encourage people to really express themselves and bring back whatever they feel like has been taken away from them in their lives – in my case, really important things like fried chicken."