Jake Gyllenhaal: 'Creation is so much harder than destruction'

NEW YORK, April 10 (UPI) -- Demolition star Jake Gyllenhaal says he firmly believes "creation is so much harder than destruction."

Asked at a recent New York roundtable interview with reporters whether he found any satisfaction in destroying objects and tearing rooms apart the way he does in his latest movie, Gyllenhaal quipped: "I'm an actor. Isn't that what we do in hotel rooms? No!

"Yeah, it was definitely... That was so fun. It was great fun," he acknowledged. "But, for me, I think there is more of a profound fun in watching an artist create. That was more fun. I think creation is so much harder than destruction and that is definitely something I learned. It took the people who built that section of the house a whole lot longer to build that section of the house and design it and talk about it and plan it than it did for us to take it down. ... I'm not dissing demolition crews, but I'm just saying, there is something, metaphorically speaking, that it is so much easier to cut somebody down than it is to raise them up, for some reason. And it's so much better and so much more satisfying and ultimately so much more life-affirming and makes you feel so much better when you create than when you cut down."

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee and written by Bryan Sipe, Demolition casts Gyllenhaal as Davis, an investment banker whose seemingly perfect life is turned upside-down after his wife [played by Heather Lind] dies in a car crash. After making a complaint to a vending-machine company, he ends up finding unlikely connections with a customer-service representative [played by Naomi Watts] and her troubled son [played by Judah Lewis,] forcing him to re-evaluate his life and how he has been living it. Chris Cooper plays his father-in-law, a successful businessman who doesn't understand how Davis is dealing with his grief.

Demolition is in theaters now.