Jake Gyllenhaal Says Jennifer Aniston Love Scenes Were Torture

Jake Gyllenhaal revealed he had a major crush on co-star Jennifer Aniston on the set of 2002's romantic drama The Good Girl.

Per Fox News, the Nightcrawler star opened up about his former screen partner during a recent interview and admitted it was tough to film love scenes with Aniston, 52, because he was infatuated with her.

"[Filming the sex scenes] was torture, yes it was," Gyllenhaal, 40, said laughing. "But it was also not torture. I mean, come on, it was like a mix of both."

"Weirdly, love scenes are awkward, because there are maybe 30, 50 people watching it? That doesn’t turn me on," he continued. "It’s oddly mechanical. And also it’s a dance, you’re choreographing for a camera. You can get in it, but it’s like a fight scene, you have to choreograph those scenes."

The Brokeback Mountain actor also explained the use of a pillow as a barrier between the two. "The pillow technique was used," he said. "That was just preemptive and used generally always when actually in a horizontal place in that movie. I think that was actually a Jennifer suggestion. She was very kind to suggest it before we began. She was like, ‘I’m putting a pillow here.’"

In 2016, Gyllenhaal first revealed his crush on The Morning Show star. "She’s a rough one, you know, not likable. So hard to compliment," he told People. "I will say, I had a crush on her for years. And working with her was not easy… I was – um, yeah. That’s all I’m going to say. It was lovely. It wasn’t hard, that’s what I would say."

Gyllenhaal admitted at the time that he wasn’t a fan of her breakout Friends role, but was stunned by her "personality from afar, and movies she was in. And some of Friends – I’m not a huge Friends fan – but who she is.”