Game actor Jake Gyllenhaal

Apr 6, 2010, 12:39 GMT

Jake Gyllenhaal says it's "awesome" he is starring in 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' - because he is a huge fan of the original video game.

The actor portrays hero Dastan in the forthcoming action movie - which has been written by the game's creator Jordan Mechner - and admits he is struggling to comprehend the fact he is playing the big-screen version of one of his digital childhood heroes.

The 29-year-old star said: "I played the original side-scrolling version of the game when I was a kid. And then I took a little hiatus.

"I was actually kind of tripping out on that with Jordan the other day. I was saying to him, 'Who knew when I was playing it - after I closed out 'Oregon Trail' and went over to my 'Prince of Persia' game when I was I don't know how old, maybe eight or something - who knew I would be playing the Prince of Persia?' It's kind of awesome."

Jake insists the movie will be better than any other video game adaptation because so much care has been taken with scripting the action scenes.

He explained to MTV News: "The reason why most video games movies haven't been successful up until now is the fact that most of the action that takes place is stuff that we've seen before [in the game], but hasn't had a reason in the story line that makes sense.

"So, in this movie we decided that everything the prince did in the movie had to have a reason. If he were going to jump on a wall and run over to get away from somebody, or he's going to jump from building to building, there had to be an obstacle. It had to be based on something that he had learned, or based in the story line.

"Most of the time you just see really cool stunts and people doing really cool things, but you don't know why. Our action all ties back into the ultimate story."