Jake Gyllenhaal's press tour around Spider-Man: Far From Home can be seen as part and parcel with the character of Mysterio he was playing: charming, disarming, and meant to leave the audience wrong-footed.
The actor gave a bit of insight into the twisty, turny world of the villian who cares most about altering public perception in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, revealing how he shaped one of the most intriguing bad guys we've seen from Marvel.
Gyllenhaal was aware the performance of Mysterio would extend beyond the set, messing with people's idea of his role and the plot of Far From Home as he went around to promote it. "I knew that there would be a meta quality throughout that process. But, it wasn’t difficult because I genuinely adore Tom Holland, and we love spending time with each other. For a majority of the movie, we are really on the same side," he said. "It could be argued, at least from where I stand, that we were on the same side anyway, even by the end of the movie. I kinda liked it; maybe that's what made the press tour so entertaining for me. It was still a certain type of performance."
Gyllenhaal seemed to relish in the opportunity to play a guy playing a guy (much like late Avenger Robert Downey, Jr. did in Tropic Thunder), toying with the idea of letting facades crack. He said he spent a lot of time thinking about where the non-professional actor in Quentin Beck would slip up or oversell the part he was playing.
"Throughout the whole thing, if you look at it, there’s a real shakiness to certain things that he does, and I think fellow actors could probably look at it and say, 'Oh, okay…' That was the extra meta that I loved," he said. "Calibrating that constantly, take to take, was what Jon [Watts] and I enjoyed so much."
Gyllenhaal also enjoyed the idea of a major lesson coming via the villain, noting that Marvel's most muddled baddie would be a perfect source for some hard-to-take advice. "As an audience member, not as the person who played Mysterio, I believe in Peter Parker, and I believe in Spider-Man, his power and how strong he is. What Mysterio reveals will end up helping Peter, somewhere. He’ll learn from it, and those are the best characters," he said. "The characters who teach our heroes a lesson don’t always have to be like Obi-Wan."
