Entertainment

Please Allow Jake Gyllenhaal To Serenade You With A Quarantine Love Song

by Jessica Wang
Walter McBride/WireImage/Getty Images

Actor, Broadway star, and the internet’s pandemic boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal sang a quarantine song that truly makes the case for a COVID-19 romantic musical. Gyllenhaal shared a video on Instagram on May 9 of himself singing an original tune entitled “Across the Way,” written and recorded in the span of 24 hours by Broadway composer Jeanine Tesori and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. Gyllenhaal — whose London production of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George has been postponed due to the pandemic — sang the tune to raise funds for The 24 Hour Plays, a community for creatives in theatre.

“Across the Way” chronicles a love story between two people who, in the midst of quarantine, fall in love through a window from across the way. “Another day in lockdown as panic grips the nation, another day of quarantine and utter isolation,” Gyllenhaal sings. “Thank god I have a window, thank god I have a view / Across the street another window, and in that window is you." Later, he croons, “Day 24 you sort of waved and that's how we met / Day 29 we both were up too late / I poured some wine, you raised a glass like we were on a date, a really nice first date."

As the days stretch, he sings, “Day 32 I washed my hands, you made a Cornish hen / Day 36 you sewed a mask, I washed my hands again / So far I'm asymptotic except for a bad case of FOMO, and a slightly distressing, unhealthy obsession with Governor Andrew Cuomo." The actor also launches into an impressive falsetto to wax poetic about the governor.

The song comes after Gyllenhaal announced on May 5 that his production of Sunday in the Park with George at London’s Savoy Theatre would be postponed due to the pandemic. “I was so excited to be spending the season in that beautiful city finally bringing our production to the West End,” Gyllenhaal captioned an Instagram photo of himself in front of a vanity mirror. But "in accordance with science," Gyllenhaal writes, “We will find another Sunday to bring our Sunday to you before too long… Until then, please stay safe and don’t worry: the beard will be back. Bigger and burlier than Broadway.”

It's impossible to know when Gyllenhaal will be able to safely return to the stage, but if he would like to continue this quarantine love story on Instagram, there will be no objections.