Jake Gyllenhaal And Denis Villeneuve Are Working On A Mystery Project Together

Director Denis Villeneuve is spending some time in the world of Arrakis with his two-part film adaptation of Dune, but it sounds like he might be working with a familiar collaborator again soon. Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred in Villeneuve's one-two punch of Enemy and Prisoners in 2013, revealed that the two are teaming up again for a mysterious new project.

I'll cut to the chase: we don't have any details about what this forthcoming collaboration might be. "There is something we are working on now," Gyllenhaal said in a recent interview, but that "something" remains mysterious for the time being. While I'm disappointed there aren't any concrete details yet, I'm also excited that another Gyllenhaal Villeneuve joint could be coming our way at some point.

IndieWire pointed us to the latest episode of the Team Deakins podcast, in which Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins and his team speak with people in the film industry and get insight into their work. Gyllenhaal was the guest, reuniting with Deakins after they worked on Prisoners together, and at one point, the conversation turned to their old pal Denis Villeneuve. Gyllenhaal told a fun little story about how he was convinced to star in Enemy, a genuinely unsettling film in which he plays the dual roles of a man and his double.

"At the dinner [with Villeneuve], this weird thing happened," Gyllenhaal said. "We were sitting next to this woman, and he must have planted her something, and she was like, 'Can I tell you something? Look at this, my son looks exactly like you! He is your double. Isn't that crazy? He's actually your double!' I was like, 'What!' And Denis looked at me and was like, 'You have to do this movie.'"

The story continued. "Denis told me he had to make this movie and he didn't know why. I just remember Denis saying, 'I have to make this movie and I have to make it with you. I can find someone else to do it but I can't get you out of my mind to do it.' That's very rare...Denis, to this day, there is something we are working on now and he just writes me, 'I can't wait to work with you again.' And I feel the same way. There are these people you find in your life where you just have these connections. That began that connection."

As for what this potential collaboration could be, it's far too early to know. Villeneuve is theoretically going to be tied up in the world of Dune for the foreseeable future, but after that, he's indicated that he'll be ready to return to a smaller scale movie again – and that's where Gyllenhaal thrives.