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Jake Gyllenhaal Was "Terrified" to Fight Conor McGregor, Who Accidentally Punched Him in the Face
Fists were flying on the set of the Road House remake.
Not many people could go from fighting UFC Champion Conor McGregor to starring in Shakespeare on Broadway alongside Denzel Washington, but Jake Gyllenhaal has the range.
The Nightcrawler actor was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 18 to talk about starring in a remake of the 1989 Road House starring Patrick Swayze.
Gyllenhaal stars in the 2024 Road House as Dalton, a former UFC fighter who becomes a bouncer at a seedy roadhouse in the Florida Keys. Like the source material, it features plenty of action-packed scenes, including one that led to Gyllenhaal actually getting punched in the face by McGregor.
"I've never seen anyone have 13 abs. How is it possible? The training that goes into this..." Jimmy Fallon said, as he showed a pic of a shirtless Gyllenhaal getting ready to fight in the ring.
"There was a lot of training because Conor McGregor is in the movie with me, and when I got word that he was going to be doing it I was super psyched because they chased him for a long time to play the part," explained Gyllenhaal. "But then I got totally terrified, and I thought, 'Oh God, I actually have to fake fight this guy and I got to look like I can.'"
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"I stay in pretty good shape, but we trained for two months pretty hard, grappling, a lot of MMA, and then also getting in shape," he added.
Jake Gyllenhaal was accidentally punched in the face while filming Road House
"You showed up at a UFC fight to film a scene, and no one knew you were going to be there. That would make me nervous," admitted Fallon.
"That was pretty nerve-racking. They had never allowed anyone who wasn't a fighter into the ring, and I'm wearing the UFC shorts and it has my character's name on it," recalled the Oscar nominee. "We surprised an audience of 15,000 people after the undercards, before the main event. We were given a certain amount of time to shoot a little bit of this fight sequence. They kind of got that we were fake fighting, but they were still cheering."
Gyllenhaal revealed that McGregor accidentally punched him in the face during filming one night.
"Actually, by mistake he clocked me in the face. We would do a take like fighting, fake fighting, and then we'd go watch the monitors to see it back to see what worked. He was always great with me," said Gyllenhaal. "He would tell me do things and like, 'Oh you know turn your hand, move a little bit more this way to try to make it look more real.'"
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"It was late because we shot a lot of these fight scenes at night so it was like 3 a.m. and he was talking to me really close," he continued. "And he was like, 'Yeah, that left hook looks good, but then when you do it' Boom! And he hit me by mistake."
Gyllenhaal was shocked, but revealed he later accidentally "slammed [McGregor's] face with a car door. Like, legit."
Just another day on the job when you're filming Road House.
