Definitely not in a funk: Full-figured Funke is landing choice roles on Broadway and off. (NY Post: Tamara Beckwith)
Definitely not in a funk: Full-figured Funke is landing choice roles on Broadway and off. (
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It’s a job any woman — and many a man — would love to have: hugging Jake Gyllenhaal eight times a week.
And lucky Annie Funke’s got the gig.
In “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet,” which opened last week off-Broadway, the “Brokeback Mountain” hunk plays Terry, a sweet British slacker who drifts back to his older brother’s home. Once there, he befriends his niece, Anna, a bullied and lonely 15-year-old with few friends and lots of body issues.
Funke knows all about that.
“I was always bullied about my weight,” says the fresh-faced Oklahoma native, who looks (and plays) 10 or so years younger than she is.
“There’s a pressure to be thin, in Hollywood and everywhere. I’ve been on every fad diet and my weight goes up and down, and I spent so much of my life wishing I’d fit into a size 10.
“But my journey’s been the opposite. The weight’s actually been a blessing!”
The musical-theater major came here four years ago as an understudy for Tracy Turnblad, the hefty heart of “Hairspray.” After the show closed, Funke says, she lost 60 pounds.
“It was really interesting to try to find work in a new type,” she says, choosing her words carefully. “In fact, it was a struggle, so I’ve since put some of the weight back on.”
About 40 pounds of it, which led to full-figured roles in “Wicked” and “Silence! The Musical,” the “Silence of the Lambs” parody in which she played poor, size 16 Catherine Martin.
And then came the call: She’d won the part of Anna, opposite the star who had her at “Brothers.” (“Oh my gosh, what a movie!”)
“I actually started crying,” she says. “I was ecstatic!” And intimidated.
“At one point the director left the room and it was just us,” she recalls. “Rather than engage in conversation like a normal person, I went to the piano and buried my head in my script. Jake came over and said, ‘You’re doing a great job,’ and I said, ‘Oh, thank you. So are you!’ ”
One of the biggest challenges was a scene in which a suicidal Anna steps into a bathtub.
“When I first read the script and saw, ‘Anna strips down to her bra and panties,’ there was that oh my gosh moment — am I really going to have to do that?
“But when I read it as a whole,” she continues, “and understood what she was going through, and how important it was for the audience to see her that vulnerable . . . it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever gotten to do.”
She says Gyllenhaal and the other members of the cast — Michelle Gomez and Brían F. O’Byrne, who play her parents — couldn’t have been more supportive.
Ditto the audience.
“I’ve had girls come up after the show and say, ‘Wow, what you did on stage, taking off your clothes, was really brave. I don’t think I could ever do that.’
“It’s actually the most liberating thing I’ve ever done,” she says. “The older I get, the more comfortable I am in my own skin.”
It certainly helps to have a guy like Gyllenhaal on your side.
“He’s told me a few times, ‘When we go out there, whatever happens, we have each other’s back in this.’ ”
Jake Gyllenhaal’s back. Not a bad thing to have.