In a recent interview on The Howard Stern Show, actor Jake Gyllenhaal opened up about his experience working with Jennifer Aniston on the 2002 film “The Good Girl.”
When asked if filming love scenes with Aniston was “torture” due to his real-life crush on her, Gyllenhaal jokingly responded, “Oh yeah, it was torture, yes it was.
“But it was also not torture. I mean, come on. It was like a mix of both.”
Gyllenhaal, now 40, admitted that he had harbored a crush on Aniston for years before they worked together on the movie.
However, he managed to keep his true feelings well-hidden during the filming process, thanks to the “mechanical nature” of shooting intimate scenes.
“Weirdly, love scenes are awkward because there are maybe 30, 50 people watching,” he explained.
“That doesn’t turn me on. It’s oddly mechanical. And also, it’s a dance, you’re choreographing it for a camera.”
The actor revealed that Aniston had kindly suggested using a pillow between them during horizontal scenes to help make the experience more comfortable.
“I think that was actually a Jennifer suggestion; she was very kind to suggest it before we began,” Gyllenhaal recalled.
“She was like, ‘I’m putting a pillow here.’”
This isn’t the first time Gyllenhaal has spoken about his crush on Aniston.
In a 2016 interview with PEOPLE, he joked that working with her was “rough” and admitted, “I will say, I had a crush on her for years.
“And working with her was not easy. I was – um, yeah. That’s all I’m going to say. It was lovely. It wasn’t hard, that’s what I would say.”
Gyllenhaal clarified that his attraction to Aniston wasn’t solely based on her role in the popular sitcom “Friends,” but rather on her personality and the way she presented herself both on and off-screen.
During the recent interview with Howard Stern, Gyllenhaal also discussed the possibility of becoming a father in the future and the potential of marriage with his current girlfriend, 26-year-old French model Jeanne Cadieu.
The couple has been together for several years and has recently attended a few high-profile events together, including the Vanity Fair Oscar Party and the Cannes Film Festival.
Despite the challenges of filming love scenes with someone he had genuine feelings for, Gyllenhaal looks back on his experience working with Aniston in “The Good Girl” with fondness.
The film, a comedy-drama about two lovers who embark on an affair due to their dissatisfaction with their dead-end jobs, showcased the actors’ on-screen chemistry and helped solidify Gyllenhaal’s status as a rising star in Hollywood.
