Jake Gyllenhaal has complained about the dumbing down of TV news coverage which sees stories about household pets sharing screen time with reports covering vital political issues.
In an interview to promote his new film Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal told Sky News he would like to see serious news given priority over more lightweight material such as “a video of a cat falling 40 storeys and surviving”.
The 33-year-old actor, who plays rapacious freelance videographer Lou Bloom in Dan Gilroy’s directing debut, and who lost 30 pounds to play the “coyote”-like role, said: “We’re living in a time where information has equality and that is unfortunate - there should be a hierarchy in which we’re told the current political state of things over the survival of a cat.”
But Gyllenhaal said society was equally to blame for creating the demand for such stories. “In this movie, Lou is enabled by Nina (played by Rene Russo) who buys the footage - who is ultimately enabled by us the audience,” he said. “If there wasn’t some sort of demand and people weren’t watching, I know and you know that not as many stories like that would be told - so it’s a fascinating neverending question and it’s one that the movie tries to tackle.”
Nightcrawler, also starring Riz Ahmed and Bill Paxton, opened in US and UK cinemas on Friday. It has benefited from excellent reviews and opened in joint first place at the North American box office at the weekend.
