Jake Gyllenhaal: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

4. Jimmy Livingston - Bubble Boy

Before Donnie Darko, Jake Gyllenhaal's career was...somewhat less celebrated, to put it nicely. Following childhood performances in the likes of City Slickers and his dad's own A Dangerous Woman in 1993 - and in the same year as his breakthrough role - he starred as the eponymous Bubble Boy, in an eccentric comedy inspired by the seventies John Travolta film The Boy In The Plastic Bubble. Except with a much snappier title, and stranger sense of humour. Like the Travolta film, in Bubble Boy Gyllenhaal plays a sheltered young man born without an immune system, whose devout Christian mother keeps him confined within their sterile home without any contact with the outside world. After falling in love with his neighbour and finding out she's getting married, he heads out on a cross-country journey to save her. All whilst ensconced in a big plastic bubble. Like the film Jake's performance is big, broad, and probably a little offensive. Thumbs down.