In the Grey is now playing in theaters.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill met in Guy Ritchie’s trailer on the first day of filming their new thriller In the Grey, and cheered each other on throughout the improv-heavy production. Ritchie, who wrote and directed the movie, is known for his constant script changes and focus on discovery while filming. In an exclusive interview with IGN, Gyllenhaal says that process allowed him and Cavill to hone their characters in real time.
“With Guy, there's a lot of improvisation, a lot of discovery,” Gyllenhaal says. “Lines change in the moment, scenes shift on the day. We had a scene where we got the lines maybe a few minutes beforehand. All I did was root for Henry to remember his next line, and when he got through it, I was terrified I had to remember mine. That kind of thing keeps you incredibly present.”
In The Grey, which also stars Eiza González (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Carlos Bardem (Assassin’s Creed), and Fisher Stevens (Succession), follows “a covert team of elite operatives who live in the global shadows. When a ruthless despot steals a billion-dollar fortune, the team is sent to steal it back on what would be for anyone else a suicide mission. What begins as an impossible heist gets much worse, spiraling into an all-out war of strategy, deception and survival.”
Although both Gyllenhaal and Cavill had previously worked with Ritchie, In the Grey marks their first joint on-screen appearance. According to Gyllenhaal, the two actors didn’t have much time together before being dropped right into the action.
“What's funny is that Henry and I hadn't met before day one,” Gyllenhaal says. “We encountered each other in Guy's trailer on the first morning of filming. So, there wasn't much time to workshop a shared reference point. Guy had a very clear sense of who these two (characters) were in relation to each other from the start, and that gave us a strong foundation to build from.”
After previously appearing in Ritchie’s 2023 film The Covenant, Gyllenhaal says teaming up with the director on another film was an easy decision.
“It feels like one big film in a way, because you're really in his world,” Gyllenhaal says. “He comes back and says, ‘You want to come dive in again?’ And you go, ‘Yeah, sure. I love it in there. The water's warm.’ What's also unique is that he's constantly editing as he goes. He's shaping the story, showing you cut scenes and then you're shaping the next scene together. It doesn't work the way normal movies do, which is why it's very hard to communicate what it's really like. Everyone's on their toes. And if you enjoy that, which I do, it's a hell of a time.’
