Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal is an American actor who has worked prolifically on screen and stage in a career spanning over thirty years. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in the biographical drama film October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in the thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal expanded to big-budget films with a starring role in the 2004 disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.
Gyllenhaal played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, for which he won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. His career progressed with starring roles in the thriller Zodiac (2007), the romantic comedy Love & Other Drugs (2010), and the science fiction film Source Code (2011). Further acclaim came with his roles in Denis Villeneuve's thrillers Prisoners (2013) and Enemy (2013), and he received nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performances as a manipulative journalist in Nightcrawler (2014) and a troubled writer in Nocturnal Animals (2016). His highest-grossing release came with the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), in which he portrayed Mysterio. After playing a supporting role in the drama Wildlife (2018), Gyllenhaal starred in action or thriller projects, including the films The Guilty (2021), Ambulance (2022) and Road House (2024), as well as the series Presumed Innocent (2024).
Gyllenhaal has performed on stage, starring in a West End production of the play This Is Our Youth (2002) and Broadway productions of the musical Sunday in the Park with George (2017) as well as the plays Constellations (2014) and Sea Wall/A Life (2019), the lattermost of which earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Aside from acting, he is vocal about political and social issues.
