Jake Gyllenhaal Shares How Being Legally Blind Helped His Acting Career

Jake Gyllenhaal is opening up about how being legally blind has impacted his career.

The actor, 43, shared with The Hollywood Reporter that he’s found his blindness to be “advantageous,” both personally and professionally. “I’ve never known anything else,” he explained in an interview published Wednesday, June 5. “When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself.”

Gyllenhaal noted that, while filming the 2015 film Southpaw, he took out his contacts during a particularly emotional scene involving his character learning that his wife died. Gyllenhaal, who has 20/1250 vision, explained that he did so in order to listen more closely while shooting.

Despite offering a deep dive into his acting career, the Roadhouse actor played coy with the outlet when it came to his longtime girlfriend, French model Jeanne Cadieu.

“I think we all get into that space of work, work, work, and for a long time my career took precedence, but I’m at a point in my life where I realize that family really is the only thing that matters to me,” he said when asked whether the couple plans to tie the knot.

Gyllenhall and Cadieu, 28, met at a restaurant in New York City in 2018. Us Weekly confirmed their romance that December, and the duo have been going strong ever since. “She and Jake really took things slow, but are now pretty serious,” an insider noted at the time.

The pair made their red carpet debut in 2021 at the NYFF premiere of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, The Lost Daughter. Jake later opened up about his perspective on marriage during an interview with Howard Stern.

“All I want is to be a good husband and a father. … That really is what I want,” he said in an October 2021. “And now that I have fulfilled a lot of things in my career that I feel comfortable with, I can safely say that. I don’t know if I could have said that before.”

The Donnie Darko star noted that he wouldn’t give any details regarding the possibility of an engagement in his future. “There’s only so far I’ll go as, you know, in talking about it,” he said. “I love her so much. She’s such a good person.”

His girlfriend doesn’t care much for the spotlight, he added. “And so that’s part of the reason why I just adore her, and not at all the main reason but, you know, one of them,” he gushed.