Jake Gyllenhaal’s Most Absurd Performance Isn’t What You Think It Is

Jake Gyllenhaal is primarily known as a dramatic actor, often taking on quite dark roles, such as his breakthrough performance in Donnie Darko. Some may consider Donnie Darko to be his greatest role, as it solidified his acting career and garnered cult classic status. Others may view his greatest role as a lovelorn cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, or as a manipulative journalist in Nightcrawler. There isn’t a shortage of roles to choose from when thinking about a classic Gyllenhaal performance.

As he often takes on dramas, it’s always a delight when he tackles comedic roles. There are some memorable moments that showcase his comedic talents in Okja and Velvet Buzzsaw, but nothing comes close to how absurdly funny he is as Mr. Music in John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, a comedy special on Netflix that acts as a parody of children’s programming. His dramatic acting roots and level of commitment to the role are what make his Mr. Music the standout performance in an already madcap comedy special. It also stands apart from the rest of his body of work — because he takes the role so seriously, as he would a drama, he comes across as a totally absurd comedic genius.

‘Okja’ and ‘Nightcrawler’ Showed Jake Gyllenhaal’s Comedic Potential

Jake Gyllenhaal’s career is vast and spans decades, since he started out as a child actor. His dramatic roles include a wide range of styles, from indie films, to romantic dramas, to action and sci-fi movies. But then in 2017, he starred in South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s Okja, which changed everything.

Okja featured the first pure mainstream comedy performance from Jake Gyllenhaal. His take on the character of a celebrity animal zoologist, Dr. Johnny Wilcox, is hyperbolic and eccentric. It’s a physical performance with Gyllenhaal’s jolting body movements, and a vocal performance as he utilizes every octave available to him. But while it’s a highly amusing and refreshing performance, it only skims the surface of what Gyllenhaal is capable of in comedy.

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There were inklings of this side of the actor as early as 2014 in his Nightcrawler performance. As freelance cameraman Lou Bloom, Gyllenhaal plays an unnerving anti-hero, with his performance sometimes even straying into disturbing dark comedy. He is a character on the edge of a nervous breakdown, tethered to sanity by a thread. This is one of his most spectacular and acclaimed performances, but it was really only the beginning of what was to come.

Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy was obviously impressed with Gyllenhaal’s performance, and teamed up with him again to make 2019’s horror satire Velvet Buzzsaw. Velvet Buzzsaw is a much sillier film than Nightcrawler, allowing Gyllenhaal to look ridiculous with a fringe-based haircut and large glasses, as an art critic named Morf Vandewalt. The film is a bit of a genre-bender, touching on horror, satire, and black comedy. It’s an over-the-top ensemble piece, and it’s obvious that Gyllenhaal is having a good time in this movie, while not taking himself too seriously.

Jake Gyllenhaal Is at His Most Absurd in ‘John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch’

Mr. Music from John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch takes that wild, pent-up energy from Nightcrawler and combines it with Okja’s exaggerated Dr. Johnny Wilcox, creating the perfect role for Jake Gyllenhaal. Mr. Music, at his core, feels like a man on the edge of total exasperation, put there by his own stupidity. Gyllenhaal commits fully to this character, embracing Mr. Music’s utter stupidity, even exaggerating it, while somehow still bringing a grounded realism. John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch features mainly kids and comedians, so having the star power of Gyllenhaal in the most absurd part of the Netflix comedy special allows for him to stand out and bring gravitas to what otherwise would have been regarded as just a silly segment.

When considering who should take on the role of Mr. Music, Sack Lunch Bunch creator John Mulaney thought first of Jake Gyllenhaal. In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Mulaney says that it was watching Okja that made him initially think of the actor. When discussing the role with him, Gyllenhaal suggested he play Mr. Music like he’s from somewhere in Europe, but wants to be from the Caribbean, which remarkably comes across in the final performance.

There are a few key elements of the Mr. Music performance that make it as iconic as it is. First, there is the song. While known primarily as an actor, Gyllenhaal is an accomplished singer who has performed on Broadway in the musical Sunday in the Park with George. Even when singing such a silly, repetitive song as “Music Everywhere,” you can hear that he is a more-than capable singer, as much as he is an established actor. That gives the audience an immediate level of buy-in to a character who begins to unravel before their very eyes.

The level of commitment that Jake Gyllenhaal brings to this character is evident at every turn. Gyllenhaal speaks with a loud, unspecified European accent. As a children’s entertainer, he berates the children in the scene, and has an obvious dislike of them. He is a “Mr. Music” who clearly doesn’t know a single thing about music — he is off tempo with his dance moves and obviously has no idea of what objects make music in real life, failing with each example. He takes ridiculous scenarios, such as trying to make music out of a pudding spoon or a dress shirt in a laundry sack, and brings it to a level of authenticity it doesn’t deserve, creating comedy out of the sheer stupidity of it all. All the while, he has a desperate expression on his face as he attempts to find something that works to prove his point — that there is music everywhere. He takes long, awkward pauses as he tries to plan his next move. The panic builds more and more after each failed attempt at making music out of everyday objects. The song is slowly building to a complete and utter breakdown of a man who arrives already slightly wild-eyed, who ends the segment with his mustache half fallen off, having to accept that these kids, who he has a disdain for, know more about music than him.

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is a comedic delight through and through and is arguably Mulaney’s best standalone work. The audience is already primed to laugh by the time Mr. Music arrives late in the Netflix special. Jake Gyllenhaal’s appearance further invigorates the audience with his full and unconditional commitment to this silly role. It brings the best of his previous absurd and comedic work to a climax, in what is the ultimate Jake Gyllenhaal performance. In an interview with David Letterman, John Mulaney says of Gyllenhaal as Mr. Music, “I think it’s his best performance, and I’m not joking, and I’ve told him that.”

John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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