Jake Gyllenhaal's muscle dream

Jan 9, 2010, 10:03 GMT

Jake Gyllenhaal has always wanted to be an action hero.

The 29-year-old actor - who plays a young prince in the movie adaptation of the video game 'Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time' - said he enjoyed buffing up for the role and not having to play serious characters for a change.

He said: "I'd come off a lot of films that were very character driven and I had exercised all those muscles, it was time to try something else. It's so much fun to just run around and fight. It's like what I always dreamed of doing when I thought about being an actor as a little kid.

"And then I made all these movies where I was like... I mean, I like all the stories I made, but I've always wanted to do this. It's a legitimate action movie!"

The 'Brokeback Mountain' star spent six months in the gym training for the part but said he wasn't just doing it to "look good".

He told Empire magazine: "How did I get so big? In order to be a warrior fighting in all these scenes and to actually fight with these people and have legitimate fun in the movie, it required six months of pretty heavy training, as if I were fighting, as if I were running on walls, as if I were jumping up and down and grabbing things. I mean, it was really fun stuff. "