Jake Gyllenhaal

Jacob Benjamin Jake Gyllenhaal is an American actor. A member of the Gyllenhaal family and the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting as a child with a screen debut in City Slickers , followed by roles in A Dangerous Woman and Homegrown . His breakthrough performance was as Homer Hickam in October Sky and he garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Male Lead for playing the titular character in the indie cult hit Donnie Darko , in which he played a psychologically troubled teenager alongside his older sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal. He subsequently appeared in another indie film, The Good Girl and the climate fictiondisaster film The Day After Tomorrow , portraying a student caught in a cataclysmic climate event.

Gyllenhaal was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of film producer and screenwriter Naomi Foner and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, his older sister, appeared with him in the film Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaals father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is of Swedish and English descent, and is a descendant of the Swedish noble Gyllenhaal family. Jakes last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his greatgreatgrandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. Jakes mother was born in New York City and is from a Jewish family . Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. On his thirteenth birthday, Gyllenhaal performed a bar mitzvahlike act, without the typical trappings, volunteering at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to give him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle. His parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself and he thus worked as a lifeguard and as a busboy at a restaurant operated by a family friend.

Source: Wikipedia