Jake Gyllenhaal has had a penchant for the dark side in recent years, playing tormented and sometimes sociopath characters on the fringe, but the actor found himself playing the “most adult and most evolved” role to date as a professional boxer. In “Southpaw,” out in U.S. theaters on Friday, Gyllenhaal plays Billy Hope, a New York orphan who becomes a rags-to-riches boxing success, then spirals back into poverty and is unable to care for his young daughter after the sudden death of his wife Maureen. To play Billy, Gyllenhaal honed his physicality into that of a boxer’s, which he called “hard physical work,” and attributed the challenge to mental training as well. He said, “You would train your body to be in that place where your mind is telling you to go.”
