Jake Gyllenhaal Gives His Verdict on Conor McGregor’s ‘Road House’ Fight Scenes

It should be surprising for his fans that they will get to see Conor McGregor fight on the silver screen before he fights in the Octagon this year. McGregor finished shooting for his Hollywood debut project ‘Road House’ many moons ago and is now promoting the same with his co-star Jake Gyllenhaal. The action flick seemingly has scenes where McGregor and Gyllenhaal’s characters duke it out, and the Hollywood A-lister recently opened up about what it was like to butt heads with ‘The Notorious’ on camera.

Ahead of the release of the movie on March 21 on Prime Video, the lead actor of ‘Road House’ spoke to MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn about his scenes as a UFC fighter in the movie and working with McGregor. The Brokeback Mountain star decided to give his two cents on the fight scenes featuring Conor McGregor and himself in the movie.

‘Road House’ was a learning curve for Conor McGregor

This trailer made it evident that there will be intense fight scenes in the film. Discussing the same, Mike Bohn asked the 43-year-old about the fight scenes and combat which Gyllenhaal was already familiar with since he has worked in movies such as Spiderman Far from Home. The host asked, “You’ve done a lot of combat scenes in your acting career but with someone like Conor who is a former UFC champion and comes from that world, uh, did that make it more challenging?”

Gyllenhaal was thoughtful and quick to answer the question and said that he had already worked with ex-fighters. The movie star also mentioned how the fighters often learned to become stunt people, so in that sense, they already knew how to fake a fight. He further added, “I think Conor had a learning curve that you know, learning how to fake fight was not… you know also I worked with [Michael] Chandler too, which is kind of interesting in that sense.”

Gyllenhaal also mentioned how fighting in a movie is not actually using strength but selling the action sequence to the audience and how McGregor was learning pretty fast.

Conor McGregor finished shooting for his Hollywood debut project back in 2022. His big screen debut with Jake Gyllenhaal is actually a remake of the 80s action classic movie ‘Road House.’ McGregor is playing an original character named ‘Knox’ who, based on the trailer of the film, will be taking on Gyllenhaal’s ‘Dalton’ on more than one occasion in the action flick. And even though Gyllenhaal was showering McGregor with praise, ‘Mystic Mac’ was not confident about acting in a Hollywood movie at first.

McGregor was not sure about his Hollywood debut

While having a conversation with Total Film, Conor McGregor revealed that the call for ‘Road House’ was not the first offer that he had received to act in Hollywood. He stated, “I had turned down a good few roles in my time on the climb.” He also admitted the fact that his interest in Hollywood without any commitment left some people disappointed.

The Irishman was expected to be a part of XXX: The Return of Xander Cage in 2016, but he tapped out of the project after suffering a harsh defeat at UFC 196 against Nate Diaz. McGregor was also supposed to act in the Guy Richie-directed movie named King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. However, McGregor was training for his UFC 194 fight against Jose Aldo. Richie also compared the UFC icon to actor Jason Statham and said that he could “clean up Hollywood.”

With the release of ‘Road House’ on the horizon, he has finally plunged into the Hollywood scene despite his lack of experience in acting and is doing pretty well, according to fans. Speaking about the same, he stated, “I was just in awe of it all, to be honest with you, the whole process, I didn’t know how I was going to take to it. I didn’t know whether I was going to like it, to be honest. I’m a fighting man – that’s my bread and butter. It’s where I come from… I’m not an actor, but I’m show business.”

This comment showcases how he is relishing his newfound talent and role while paying respects to his roots in combat sports. Are you excited about the collaboration between Gyllenhaal and McGregor in this new movie?

Also Read: Conor McGregor Releases Major Sequences on His Character ‘Knox’ for Road House 2024- “Against Jake Gyllenhaal”