Jake Gyllenhaal gives honest take on Conor McGregor’s acting in Road House

The much-anticipated remake is heading to streaming very soon.

In the reboot of the 1989 flick, the MMA fighter makes his acting debut playing Knox, a goon-for-hire who goes head to head with Gyllenhaal’s character.

The new Road House premiered at SXSW festival on Saturday night, and has been getting a decent reception as far as the reviews go – scoring a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.

On top of this, McGregor has earned several positive notices for his “devilishly flamboyant villain” portrayal, with the MMA fighter appearing to have taken his bold and brash attitude in real-life straight to the action flick.

And now, he has received praise from Gyllenhaal – with the Donnie Darko star telling MMA Junkie: “I think we all had great respect for the fight game. Same thing with Conor when he came to the movie set.

“He came in and said: ‘I’m a white belt. I’m here to learn. I don’t know anything about making movies or acting, and I want to learn.’

“That type of humility in that space, I tried to bring the same way in the opposite end. I don’t know that much about the fight game. I have great respect for it, and I wanted to learn.”

According to Gyllenhaal, McGregor – being an MMA fighter – had to train himself “how to fake fight” for the cameras.

The movie star also recalled a moment filming when he was particularly impressed with McGregor’s acting chops, telling the outlet: “Being head-to-head with Conor, the first shot we shot was that head butt, and that was his first time just staring me in the eyes and I was like, ‘Oh s**t.’”

Directed by Doug Liman – known for helming The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow and Mr. & Mrs. Smith – the 2024 version of Road House will be released globally on Prime Video on 21 March.

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