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Is Jake Gyllenhaal Blind? Actor Opens Up About 20/150 Vision and How He’s Used It to His Advantage
Jake Gyllenhaal opened up about his longtime vision issues in a June 2024 interview. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the actor dished about being legally blind and how it’s affected his career.
Is Jake Gyllenhaal Blind?
Jake Gyllenhaal is legally blind with 20/150 vision. He was born with a lazy eye and his vision problems continued after it resolved naturally.
“I like to think it’s advantageous,” Jake told The Hollywood Reporter in a June 2024 profile. “I’ve never known anything else. When I can’t see in the morning, before I put on my glasses, it’s a place where I can be with myself.”
The Brokeback Mountain star said he’s even used his blindness to improve his acting. He reflected on a specific experience while filming Southpaw, which was released in 2015. Jake played a boxer in the movie and, in one scene, his character was told that his wife had died. The Los Angeles native said he took out his contacts to “force himself to listen more closely” to his costar during the scene.
Does Jake Gyllenhaal Wear Glasses?
Jake normally wears intensive corrective contact lenses but has to rely on glasses when he doesn’t have his contacts in. He has been wearing glasses since he was about 6 years old, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In a 2017 interview with The Telegraph, the Road House actor said he was an “easy target” for childhood bullies because of his glasses. “I was always a sensitive kid,” he admitted.
Jake also reflected on his awkward years during a joint interview with Tom Holland in 2019. “I have very bad eyesight so I wore very thick glasses,” he recalled. “There was a moment where I got contact lenses for the first time in high school and my life changed. My braces came off and my glasses came off. There’s plenty of pictures. I know there’s at least one on the internet.”
Taylor Swift, who dated Jake in 2010, included a line about the star’s glasses in her song “All Too Well,” which she released in 2012. “You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed,” the pop star crooned in the song’s second verse. When Jake posted a childhood photo of himself wearing glasses in 2020, fans flooded the comments section with this song lyric. Taylor shared the full 10-minute version of the song in 2021 when she rereleased her album Red with several never-before-heard songs.
