Gyllenhaal Recalls ‘Oh S—t’ Moment With ‘White Belt’ Actor McGregor

Conor McGregor has officially gone Hollywood.

The former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Featherweight and Lightweight champion acted in his first role as part of a major motion picture in 2023. McGregor stars in the upcoming Road House remake alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, which just had its worldwide premiere this past weekend (March 8, 2024), but begins streaming on Prime Video next week (Thurs., March 21, 2024).

Road House has plenty of tie-ins with UFC as some scenes were filmed during actual event weigh-ins with a Gyllenhaal fight scene also shot inside the Octagon on a fight night. When the notable actor first met his Irish colleague, Gyllenhaal recalls a pleasantly humble approach to the new project that was being taken on.

“I came to the fight game as bringing movies there, and I thought it was a fantastic response. It was super fun,” Gyllenhaal told MMA Junkie. “I think we all had great respect for the fight game. Same thing with Conor when he came to the movie set. He came in and said, ‘I’m a white belt. I’m here to learn. I don’t know anything about making movies or acting, and I want to learn.’ That type of humility in that space, I tried to bring the same way in the opposite end. I don’t know that much about the fight game. I have great respect for it, and I wanted to learn.”

McGregor’s fighting future remains up in the air since he last fought against Dustin Poirier in July 2021. “The Notorious” has been adamant that he wants to return to action for his long-anticipated match up against Michael Chandler, who he coached against on The Ultimate Fighter 31 (TUF) last year.

Coincidentally, Gyllenhaal learned about fight processes and sequences from Chandler, too.

“Mostly I’ve worked with a lot of ex-fighters, but they’ve learned how to be stunt people so in that sense, they know how to fake fight,” Gyllenhaal said. “I think Conor had a learning curve in learning how to fake fight was not [natural]. Also, I worked with Chandler, too, which is kind of interesting. Both of them in the sequences we did — I remembered taking a hit in a movie. You’re not taking it; you’re selling it. Being head-to-head with Conor, the first shot we shot was that head butt, and that was his first time just staring me in the eyes and I was like, ‘Oh s—t.’”