Jake Gyllenhaal landed his first TV role in a 1994 episode of “Homicide: Life on the Street.” It was a small role where Gyllenhaal played a kid named Matt, who is traumatized after his mother is shot to death in a mugging right in front of him.
Gyllenhaal was an unknown actor in his early teens at the time, so his performance was over-shadowed by that of guest star Robin Williams, who played Matt’s father. Williams was praised by critics for his grounded, surprisingly non-comedic performance in the episode. “He had no opportunity to do jokes and didn’t want an opportunity,” showrunner Tom Fontana told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Williams. “He wanted to play it exactly how it was written.”
The episode, “Bop Gun,” proved a turning point for the series, which had previously been struggling in the ratings and facing threats of cancellation. Public interest in Williams playing a serious role helped the episode rake in over 16 million viewers, ensuring the show would be renewed for at least another season. Much like one of the best HBO original series of all time, “The Wire,” “Homicide” may not have been a big ratings hit, but it was always critically acclaimed. In one review following Williams’ episode, a TV critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer begged his readers to check out the show, writing “please watch it” repeatedly throughout the piece.
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Jake Gyllenhaal always wanted to be an actor, but his parents made him go to school first
Universal Pictures
There was a four-year gap between Jake Gyllenhaal’s appearance in “Homicide” and his next on-screen appearance, this one in the ’98 movie “Homegrown.” Although both of Gyllenhaal’s parents were successful in Hollywood — his father Stephen actually directed the episode of “Homicide” he starred in — neither parent wanted their son to be too involved in Hollywood too quickly.
“We wanted him to have a normal childhood,” Stephen told Newsday in a 1999 profile. He and his screenwriter wife, Naomi Foner, refused to let Jake star in the hit Disney film “The Mighty Ducks” in 1992, and only let him try out for his breakout role in “October Sky” after he finished his junior year of high school. They also insisted Gyllenhaal go to college, but he dropped out after two years to fully pursue film. As he told the Guardian in 2005, “I never thought the [acting] temptation would be so strong.”
Although Gyllenhaal always focused on film, he did return to TV to host “Saturday Night Live” three times, as well as lead the HBO miniseries “Presumed Innocent” in 2024. When asked to describe a throughline that connects his projects, Gyllenhaal told the Hollywood Reporter he looks for roles that “freak me out a bit … The feeling I want to have is, can I do it? That it’s going to ask of me things that I don’t know about myself yet.”
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