By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
TORONTO (AP) --As the cast and makers of "Stronger" collectively rose to take a bow after the film's Toronto International Film Festival premiere, Jake Gyllenhaal realized that Jeff Bauman, whom he plays in the film and who wears prosthetic legs, was still sitting, overwhelmed with emotion.
"Jake was like, 'Get up!'" said Bauman. "And I stood up."
"As soon as he got up, everyone else stood up," said Gyllenhaal. "I realized: This movie just showed them everything he went through just for that moment. I've never had an experience like that making a movie."
"Stronger," directed by David Gordon Green (of Chelsea Pictures for commercials), is the kind of movie that holds as much drama off the screen as on it. The movie chronicles Bauman's struggles after the bomb explosion tore through his legs while waiting by the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon. He was there to greet his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Erin Hurley, who had previously chided Jeff for never "showing up."
"Stronger," based on Bauman's 2014 memoir, is an undoubtedly inspiring story, but maybe not in the way you'd expect. Honest, painful and funny, it avoids the familiar Hollywood beats for a more truthful tale of personal growth. "The big moments of our lives don't happen in a close-up," says Gyllenhaal.
"Stronger" captures Bauman, now 31, recalibrating his life after the tragedy, still struggling with relationship and drinking problems that predated the bombing and chafing at the role cast upon him as a heroic symbol of "Boston Strong." Bauman instead saw himself merely, he says, as: "Just a dude with no legs."
Bauman's modesty remains, but he's also come to terms with being someone who gives hope to others, who can now connect with a wide world of amputees, war veterans and other sufferers trying to get by. One memorable scene, taken from a real experience, shows Bauman mobbed at Fenway and listening to story after story.
"There's so much love coming at Jeff," says Gyllenhaal. "People line up — they really do — to talk to him. They're like: 'This thing happened to me,' 'That thing happened to me.' We are not alone in all that, and that's what his story says."
Meeting for an interview at a Toronto hotel shortly after the film's festival premiere, the close bond between Gyllenhaal and Bauman was plainly evident. In the two and a half years since they began working on the movie together, they've gotten to know each other well through Gyllenhaal's regular trips up to Boston to spend time with Bauman and study how he moves physically. Bauman came to New York to see Gyllenhaal on Broadway. They threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park together.
"Since we first met, I think he's a totally different person now," Gyllenhaal says. "Particularly in the past year, since getting sober. I think he's been much more open. When we first met, trying to learn about him and figure out what was going on was a little harder. And now I feel like I know him better than even when I played the role."
"Bromance" is a term that has often been applied to their relationship, but Gyllenhaal, 36, is more like an encouraging older brother. He's helped Bauman through hard times (he and Hurley, previously married and with a three-year-old daughter, Nora, have separated) and gamely accepts Bauman's playful chiding — like his questioning the depth of the New York-based Gyllenhaal's Red Sox fandom.
Jake: I am a Sox fan. I just wear a Yankees hat, but I am a Sox fan.
Jeff: He doesn't wear a Yankees hat around me.
Jake: That's true.
Jeff (derisively): He's a Warriors fan.
Jake: Easy.
They've been inseparable while strolling down red carpets and promoting "Stronger." ''I'm like his shadow," said Gyllenhaal. Last week, they showed the film to patients and staff at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where Bauman worked on his recovery and where they filmed scenes for the movie. In Toronto, Bauman was pleased to see a photo caption misidentifying him as his fiction-film doppelganger. He plans to frame it and give it to Jake.
But in the time they've been making "Stronger" (Gyllenhaal is also a producer), both say Bauman has dramatically grown. He's now 15 months sober and studying engineering in college. Working at Costco at the time of the bombing, Bauman now hopes to work for a prosthetics company. He also moved out of his mother's apartment and into his own place. Gyllenhaal considers it the film's biggest accomplishment.
"I took my hand off the pause button," says Bauman. "I had my life on pause. You get stuck, especially when you're drinking and isolating. I started homing in on what I wanted to do as a person. Just try to grow up."
When Gyllenhaal first met Bauman, he was struggling to adjust to the prosthetic legs. Now, he confidently goes up and down stairs, unaided. Bauman, still reluctant to take any credit, praises the technology. But Gyllenhaal prods him, still trying to get Bauman to take some credit.
"I wish you could stand where I stand when you walk through," Gyllenhaal says, "and people just go, 'F—ing awesome.'"
Alec Baldwin Urges Judge To Stand By Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Case In “Rust” Shooting
Alec Baldwin urged a New Mexico judge on Friday to stand by her decision to skuttle his trial and dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against the actor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.
State District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case against Baldwin halfway through a trial in July based on the withholding of evidence by police and prosecutors from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust."
The charge against Baldwin was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can't be revived once any appeals of the decision are exhausted.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey recently asked the judge to reconsider, arguing that there were insufficient facts and that Baldwin's due process rights had not been violated.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on "Rust," was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal when it went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
The case-ending evidence was ammunition that was brought into the sheriff's office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins' killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin's lawyers alleged that they "buried" it and filed a successful motion to dismiss the case.
In her decision to dismiss the Baldwin case, Marlowe Sommer described "egregious discovery violations constituting misconduct" by law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as false testimony about physical evidence by a witness during the trial.
Defense counsel says that prosecutors tried to establish a link... Read More