SINGAPORE — Everest is the name of a mountain, a brand of cigarettes and, for actor Jake Gyllenhaal, a useful metaphor. “Since I’ve been alive, many kids and adults use it as a metaphor for all the things you want and hope to accomplish in real life, and some people take that metaphor as reality and try and get to the summit.

“It also looks like life, almost impossible but somehow you can do it.”

Which sums up exactly why we, as a human race, will always be awed, intrigued, riveted and deferential to the tallest mountain in the world. And why films, both fiction and non-fiction, will constantly be made about the Himalayan peak, which has claimed the lives of so many who have attempted to reach its barren summit.

Everest, the latest docu-drama from director Baltasar Kormakur, depicts in bone-chilling detail the 
real-life circumstances that led to the tragic deaths of several people when a group of climbers attempted to scale the majestic mountain in 1996. Oscar nominees Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin play the climbers who were part of the tragedy.

So the question is, why do people want to climb Everest? Even after knowing what they know about the mountain? Brolin, who plays Beck Weathers, a survivor who lost his limbs and his nose, admitted that even after going through a gruelling filming process, he still cannot explain the experience.

“I got a feeling that the question is big in everybody’s mind. They try to explain it, like we try to explain our acting process to you. Nobody really knows, we’re all just coming up with different anecdotes and sound bites,” shared the 47-year-old actor.

“When I’m talking to Beck and other climbers about why they do what they do ... it’s extraordinary. Some people don’t want to touch it because all it means is failure to them, and for other people, it means the thing that, if you could just get there before you die, then you’d have done something a little more than 
7 billion others.”

Playing these extraordinary climbers left a lasting impact on the actors. “I think there’s a quality in the movie, it being non-fiction, there’s a responsibility to the situation, to those who were left behind and to those who experienced the actual expedition and all the things that happened on it,” said Gyllenhaal, who plays American guide Scott Fischer.

“That loomed over us when making the movie, particularly for the main characters ... There was specificity as to the reasons they made the choices, because we all wanted to portray the characters as they were, which is all good men and women.”

He continued: “What’s interesting about this is, people try to find a motivation as to why these guys went as hard and far as they did in reality; and I think the reasoning is that they were just great climbers.” 
INTERVIEW COURTESY OF UIP

Everest is in cinemas now.