The actor isn’t phased when it comes to getting his kit off on set

If you ever find yourself watching a film with Jake Gyllenhaal in which features a sex scene, just know that there’s a large chance that he is completely starkers.

The Road House star, 43, is no stranger to getting his kit off for the sake of a storyline and he reckons going the whole hog is ‘essential’ to make a romance plot convincing for viewers.

Luckily for him, co-star Anne Hathaway is just as comfortable with being in her birthday suit, so their intimate scenes in both Brokeback Mountain and Love & Other Drugs were a walk in the park for these two.

Gyllenhaal previously praised the actor, 41, for her ‘rhythm’ between the sheets, while saying that they were able to work well together while shooting the bedroom snippets as they are both ‘inherently very musical’.

During the press tour for Love & Other Drugs, he explained: “It’s all about rhythm. There’s a rhythm to writing, there’s a rhythm to sports and there’s a rhythm to sex.

“I recommend getting in bed with Anne Hathaway to any man.”

Well, I’m sure there is already a queue round the block for that.

So if you were left swooning over the duo’s dynamic on screen, Gyllenhaal reckons the fact he was completely in the buff had a lot to do with it.

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Discussing why he prefers to be bare-a**ed when he’s getting frisky on set, the Donnie Darko actor explained: “I’ve never had sex with boxers on and it’s an odd thing to watch an actor… not to say I haven’t tried, but I don’t recommend it.

“I think we all decided that if we were going to tell a love story [in Love & Other Drugs], one of the essential elements of a love story is sex – and it should be.

“If we were going to be as open and intimate in the love story as we could be, we’d have to do the same thing in the sex.

“And when you see two people in a movie like that, particularly as an actor and they’re portraying two people in love, it’s like, how do you really, truly, even unconsciously believe that these two people are in love if they don’t want to be naked around each other, you know?”

Gyllenhaal said being on the same page about filming without a stitch on was ‘really important to them’, as they wanted to ‘get somewhere in the audience’s unconscious’ and sell ‘the idea that these two characters were actually in love’.

Fox

Hilariously, Hathaway was even disrobing herself when she wasn’t required too during filming.

She revealed that while shooting a scene where her character arrives at Gyllenhaal’s flat and accidentally exposes herself to his flatmate, she mistakenly stripped off in front of the crew.

Recalling the mortifying moment, the Les Misérables legend said: “We’d been shooting for a few hours, the ice was broken and everything was fine, we were just back from lunch and I’d gone behind the set and was talking to someone.

“Then all of a sudden someone whispers ‘Annie you’re on!’ and I think because they were whispering I thought we were shooting, so I ran in and dropped [my coat] and I’m just standing there and I see Jake kind of freeze and go ‘huh?’

“And I realise the camera is in a different place and we’re still rehearsing and that I got naked unnecessarily in front of everyone! So then I pulled my trench coat on very quickly and it was obviously a case of life imitating art!”