Jake Gyllenhaal, birth name: Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal, born: December 19, 1980 in Los Angeles, California. Height: 6 ft (183 cm), Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius. Jake was born to director Stephen Gyllenhaal and producer/screenwriter Naomi Foner.

photo: PR Photos

Jake started acting at the age of 11. He is the brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, who played his sister in Donnie Darko (2001). His father is of partial Swedish heritage and his mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

2005 was a prolific year for Gyllenhaal, who starred in the critically praised films Proof, Jarhead, and Brokeback Mountain. In Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young men who meet as sheep herders and embark upon a homosexual relationship that begins in the summer of 1963 and continues until the death of Gyllenhaal’s character in 1983. The film was often referred to in the media with the shorthand phrase “the gay cowboy movie.”

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