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Jake Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age eleven, and his career has seen performances in diverse roles. Gyllenhaal's first major film appearance was in 2001's cult hit Donnie Darko, in which he played a teenager troubled by psychological problems. In the 2004 blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, he portrayed a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event alongside Dennis Quaid. He then played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005) and, that same year, won critical acclaim as a "gay cowboy" in the controversial but highly lauded film, Brokeback Mountain. Gyllenhaal has taken an activist role in supporting various political and social causes. He appeared in Rock the Vote advertising, campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2004 election, and has promoted environmental causes and the American Civil Liberties Union.