Jake Gyllenhaal is the latest movie start to make the transition to the small screen and he’s in good company with writer and director Janicza Bravo. Just announced, the pair are taking on an adaptation of
New Yorker journalist Ian Parker’s article “
A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions” which tracks the many public lies told by book writer and editor Dan Mallory.Parker’s article was released in February 2019 and covers the life of the controversial book editor who is also former vice president and executive editor at William Morrow and Company. Mallory made history with his novel
The Woman In The Window written under the pseudonym, A.J. Finn, which became the first debut novel in over a decade to top the New York Times bestseller list. The book was adapted into the 2020 film by the same name and starred Amy Adams as the film’s protagonist along with Anthony Mackie, Julianne Moore and Gary Oldman.Parker’s piece on Mallory focused on the author’s fabrications about his personal life that he shared in interviews while promoting
The Woman In The Window. Mallory lied about suffering from cancer and brain tumors, attending and teaching at the University of Oxford, losing his mother to cancer, and losing his brother to suicide. Mallory later admitted that both his mother and brother were still alive and attributed his lies to bipolar II disorder. However, a UCLA professor of psychiatry interviewed in the
New Yorker piece said that a patient with bipolar disorder can't attribute "delusions, amnesia, or chronic lying for secondary gain, or to get attention” and that doing so is hugely irresponsible since it only contributes to negative stereotypes about the condition.According to
Deadline, the new series from Bravo and Gyllenhaal will follow a character who suffers from imaginary brain tumors and “mourns family members who are not dead while preying on people’s sympathy to get away with almost anything.” Gyllenhaal’s role in the series has not been confirmed, but it seems a safe bet to assume in the meantime that the actor will portray Mallory.[video_embed id='1935421']RELATED: Jake Gyllenhaal denies having framed artwork of himself at home [/video_embed]“What may have started out as my dog ate homework turns into my mother died of cancers, my brother took his life and I have a double doctorate,” said Bravo in a
statement about the new series. “Our protagonist is white, male and pathological. There is a void in him and he fills it by duping people. He’s a scammer. The series examines white identity and how we as an audience participate in making room for this behavior.”Bravo and Gyllenhaal will both act as executive producers on the Annapurna project and Bravo will also co-write the pilot episode with Brian Savelson (
Little America, The New Yorker Presents). Bravo debuted her second feature film
Zola (starring Taylour Paige and Riley Keough) at Sundance last year, but the public release date has been
pushed back indefinitely. The director has also worked extensively in TV in the past few years, directing the "Juneteenth" episode of Donald Glover’s Emmy-winning
Atlanta, and episodes of
Dear White People,
Mrs. America,
The New Yorker Presents and Netflix’s
Love series. Gyllenhaal was most recently seen in
Spider-Man: Far From Home.[video_embed id='2018604']BEFORE YOU GO: Issa Rae opens up about being Hollywood trailblazer [/video_embed]
