"There are moments when people seem 'shinier' than other people. We happen to be in that moment right now," says Jake Gyllenhaal (right), photographed Oct. 6 with, from left, Forest Whitaker, Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Josh Brolin and Michael B. Jordan at Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles.
Huddled together just before the first of this year's awards-season roundtables got underway, the six invited actors were eager to discuss one thing: Christopher Nolan. "Is he a big guy?" one of the participants asked McConaughey, who was taking a break from shooting the director's Interstellar on the Sony lot. Queried another, "Does he talk a lot?" McConaughey, 43, demurred as he joked with his Dallas Buyers Club co-star Leto, 41, who had flown in the night before from Michigan, where he performed with his band Thirty Seconds to Mars.
The Labor Day star on reinventing oneself to avoid becoming stale as an actor: "Fear — there's always fear. You re-create yourself in every movie, don’t you?"
Brolin, 45, says his strangest audition was for 1989's The Fly 2: "I was living in New York at the time, and I went in there, and [the character is] in a cocoon, transforming into a fly. So I walked in, and I started reading. You do the voice, and you're like, [choking sounds] you know, doing your thing. And I ended up on the floor, frothing at the mouth. I got back to my apartment, and there was already a message on my machine from my agent that said: 'What the f— did you do in there? You scared them.' I said, 'Well, did I get it?' That was the worst audition I ever did."
"The biggest mistake that I've made is not really admitting to myself that filmmaking is a director's medium," says Gyllenhaal, 32. "We all get into situations where we're working with people, and we try to control that. [But] I realized, once I'm gone, that's going to be this director's vision from here on out. I did that in the past a lot, and now, giving all of that up is such a beautiful and relieving thing."
The Prisoners actor on the family business: "My family has been in the movie business — my weirdly extended and immediate family. The movies are such a big part of our interactions. It makes me anxious being around a table here because this particular scenario just makes me feel like the dinner table. (Laughs.)"
McConaughey on his strangest audition: "Worst for me was a Lee Tamahori film. Went for a read on that for the part of the heavy. I knew going out, 'Man, you kind of gave 80 percent.' And I got in my truck and turned around — U-turn — came back in, just [walked] right past the secretary, knocked the casting director out of the way, went right up to [Tamahori] and weight-nailed him against the wall. I grabbed the next guy and put him in the corner and grabbed like a spoon or something. I just wrecked the room and then left. I didn’t hear back from 'em. (Laughs.)"
The Dallas Buyers Club star on how acting differs from other professions: "Sets aren't places where we can all get along — we don't have to. Is it supposed to be easy? No, it's not supposed to be easy. I mean, the first audition I had with [Richard] Linklater, Dazed and Confused, that was a job interview for me, right? So I tucked in my shirt, man, shaved my hair, pressed my jeans and went in 'cause it was a job interview. And he was like: 'Hey, OK. Let your hair grow out, and maybe, uh …' And I was like, 'I can do that?' (Laughs.)"
Leto, who played a transsexual in Dallas Buyers Club, says the toughest part about the role was "the waxing. (Laughs.) I was smooth."
He adds, "I waxed my legs. Oh yeah, man, I was a pro. I didn't want that stubble growing back. I waxed my eyebrows, too. And you hear these stories, you know, the old lady who's got like two eyebrow hairs left on her eyebrows. … But I waxed them a couple of times throughout shooting, and the third time I did it, the makeup lady is like: 'You sure you want to do this? 'Cause I just don't know if they're gonna come back.' "
Leto on how he auditioned for Dallas Buyers Club: "I did the Skype with the director, and I reached over and got some lipstick and I put it on, and I had a little pink sweater on and flirted with him a little bit. I woke up, and I got the job. I was stunned."
"I've been fortunate, I guess: I've gotten to play a lot of very diverse roles for quite a long time," says Whitaker, 52, after being asked about people saying this is the year of the black actor in film. "But in the beginning, I was thinking: 'I'm not gonna do certain characters. I will be willing to say no and live on a couch.' And I was really happy. Maybe more happy sometimes than in the latter years when I had more, when I was thinking and considering more things for different reasons — for family, for my home. But luckily I was able to at least maintain some sort of a line. Even if I would veer right or left, I would stay pretty close to center, and the roles were really interesting."
The Lee Daniels’ The Butler actor on his strangest audition: "I fell through a stage once. I was doing a truly African dance, and all of a sudden I hit the ground with my foot and went straight through the stage. I guess they didn't have much money, so the floor was kind of rotting."
"They were getting ready to cast Tupac [for a planned biopic], and when I was auditioning, they were like, 'Can you rap?' And I was just like, 'Sure!' " says Jordan, 26, who agreed with Leto's assertion that an actor must "lie as much as you can" in order to get the job.
The Fruitvale Station star on his biggest sacrifice for his career: "The family, for sure. When I was 19, I left Jersey and moved out here to L.A. to pursue acting. And one of my only regrets was not realizing how that affected my little brother. [There's] a six-year difference between us, and when I'm 19, he's 13, and that's the age that he really needs his older brother. And I was selfishly trying to pursue the acting thing on the other side of the country. [He was] growing up in the shadow of his older brother — not being his own person in a way — [with] everybody looking at him: 'Oh, that's Mike's little brother.' I guess you just have to accept it."