Jake Gyllenhaal is a busy man. The Academy Award-nominated actor is the latest villain to face Spider-Man, playing Mysterio, a Netflix sensation thanks to his role in Velvet Buzzsaw, a Broadway star and he is also the face of Calvin Klein Eternity. And this is all in the past 12 months.

Sitting down with Gyllenhaal, it is clear that this is a man who puts his all into every role, but the time has come to take more control of his life. “I am trying to set aside more time now than I ever have. My life has been driven by professional ambition,” he explains. His role as the face of Calvin Klein Eternity sees him play a father, something that he hasn't yet found time to do. “Part of being a partner with Calvin Klein Eternity in this way has been a certain reminder of wanting to start a family and pay more attention to my life. At the same time, I want to feel more positive and secure within my career. I am at an age where I feel really fulfilled by a lot of things that I have done and it makes me feel very proud. So in that way, now it's time to work on the things that I probably neglected a bit more.”

For Gyllenhaal, there is no better match for him than Calvin Klein. “The partnership initially came about when Raf Simons was at Calvin and then it has evolved to my relationship with Calvin as a company,” he tells me. “It embraces the international spirit at the same time as its own identity. I really love that they are artists focused in a lot of ways, there is a real sense of creativity to what they do. With Calvin Klein, I can still be myself, while also embodying the brand.”

As Gyllenhaal grows older (he is now 38 years old), he is reflecting on what works for him and, on the other hand, what doesn't. “I don't know if I would say that I always had a dream of being the face of a fragrance, but I have always longed for a creative partnership. Even with my friendships I seek this, where they can be them and I can be me and then you learn so much from each other. I gravitate towards those things – I do that in my work, I do that with my friendships.”

Over the years, that hasn't always been the case with Gyllenhaal. Having first breached into the industry with the film City Slickers in 1991, his big-screen debut, it's no surprise that some things have been asked of him that haven't always sat too well. “I have been asked to do things throughout the years that I have not done because something didn't feel genuine or not right. And, I think a lot of people do these things, as you know, based on the financial aspect of it, or whatever it may be. For me, there really has to be a connection with the idea. The Calvin Klein partnership is creatively free and it gave me the opportunity to try something that I haven't necessarily done before, in the commercial, the imagery, in the creative connection with all the people involved – it was really fun.”

But, as aforementioned, Gyllenhaal leads a hectic life, with time really being both a blessing and a curse. Switching off hasn't always been something he can do freely, but now he is focusing on that. “I can nap anywhere; I learned that from my father. I have begun to love to travel more outside of work, as a means of trying to cleanse. Nowadays I spend more time with my family and I actually switch off: I have a periodical weekly Sunday meal and my friends and I will all basically plan our schedules around it. It is a wonderful way to switch off and forget about work. I have a friend that is a constitutional lawyer, another one who is in the food industry, everybody does different things beside the entertainment industry – it is just so wonderful to hear what people are doing outside this arena.”

Spider-Man: Far From Home has been his big blockbuster this year, in which he made his Marvel debut alongside Zendaya and Tom Holland. It is a far cry from the roles he has previously played, but, nonetheless, playing a superhero has been an eye-opener for him. “It is just an enormous movie and it is even bigger than the first one – participating in that world was definitely a learning curve for me,” he shares. “But, ultimately, what was great about it was that Jon Watts who directed the movie, and Tom Holland who I adore, are inherently theatrical and love acting. It was surprisingly a real exploration in performance – I didn't expect that.” Used to playing the outcasts and darker characters in society, he has had fun with this role. “I really do enjoy playing different characters that are a little bit, as you would say, ‘dark’. I think there is a joy in the exploration of so many different facets of life and I do gravitate to characters that are struggling with different human stuff.”

So what's next for Gyllenhaal? Aside from being pinned up on billboards across the world as part of the Calvin Klein partnership, playing a part in Sea Wall on Broadway and switching off from time to time, it's on to the next role. “I really do try and follow my instinct in terms of what comes to me. I'm not saying I don't search and fight for things I care about, but I don't have something that I want to do creatively in mind – things appear, even if a role arises, in a strange way.

“As David Lynch, "'ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.'" You are looking for the big fish and that appears when you don't expect it.

Calvin Klein Eternity Eau De Parfum is available now. £50 for 50ml. theperfumeshop.com

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