Jake Gyllenhaal Is 'Not a Big Fan of Heights'

Jake Gyllenhaal is about as high on the Hollywood totem pole as anyone can be, but just don't get him high in the air.

"I'm not a big fan of heights," the heartthrob confesses Tuesday to Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show." "I don't mind being high up, but I don't like heights. Like, I don't like hanging off of something."

Gyllenhaal explains: "Sometimes when you're driving across a bridge you see the top of the bridge and you think, 'Wow, if I walked up there.' Some people think, 'I could do that really easily. I wouldn’t be nervous,’" adding, "I don't think I'd be able to do that."

His distaste for heights could have brought on a big problem while starring as a mountain guide in "Everest," a movie centered around the eponymous mountain peak, the highest point in the world.

He was somewhat prepared for the film, he says, because he and some of the cast and crew actually went mountain climbing.

"I think playing a character, you should transform yourself," Gyllenhaal says. "Some things call for you to do things, internally and externally, sometimes not at all, sometimes you have to," he says of facing his aversion to heights," adding, "I have a vision of a character and what that character should be and sometimes I go and follow."

In “Everest,” Gyllenhaal stars opposite Keira Knightley and Robin Wright in the true story that chronicles the survival of climbers trapped on the peak of Mount Everest during a 1996 snow storm. Costarring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington and Emily Watson, the film hits theaters on Sept. 18.