By mistake, things got a little crazy for Jake Gyllenhaal as he prepared for scenes with UFC star Conor McGregor in preparation for the reimagining of the movie Road House.
The film premieres on Amazon Prime this week and stars Gyllenhaal as a former UFC middleweight fighter that ends up working as a bouncer at a bar in the Florida Keys. Much like the 1989 original film, trouble finds him quick, and that’s where McGregor comes in as the bad guy.
Gyllenhaal and McGregor had several fight scenes during filming, and at one point, McGregor mistakenly struck Gyllenhaal.
“We had, actually, by mistake, he clocked me in the face,” Gyllenhaal told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. “We would do a take where we were like fighting, and fake fighting, fake fighting, and then we’d go watch the monitor to see it back, to see what worked, and he was always great with me. He would show me, tell me to do things, and like, ‘Oh, you know, turn your head, move a little bit more this way to try and make it look more real,’ and it was late because we shot a lot of these fight scenes at night.
“So it was like 3 a.m., and he was talking to me really close, and he was like, ‘Yeah, like that left hook looks good, but then when you do it like, boom (showing fake punch),’ and he hit me by mistake. It was almost like … and I was like, ‘Oh!’ And he was like, ‘Oh!’”
Gyllenhaal got in tremendous shape for the film, which features fight scenes that were shot with former UFC fighter Jay Hieron in the octagon prior to the UFC 285 main card.
Being able to work with McGregor was a treat for Gyllenhaal. He knew the former two-division champion would get the best out of him.
“When I got word that he was going to be doing it, I was super psyched, because they chased him for a long time to play the part,” Gyllenhaal explained. “But then I got totally terrified and I thought, ‘Oh God, I actually have to fake fight this guy and I got to look like I can.’
“I stay in pretty good shape, but we trained for two months pretty hard — grappling, and a lot of MMA.”
