Gyllenhaal attributes conquering fear to Oscar-winning doc

Few performances are as daunting as the one-person play. That's why Jake Gyllenhaal had to find a way to conquer that fear when he took on the role of Abe in the second half of 'Sea Wall/A Life.'"Before I did it, I was terrified," Gyllenhaal said of "A Life," after the play's Broadway opening. Tom Sturridge stars in "Sea Wall," the other half of the pair of one-act monologues.

Gyllenhaal admits that nervousness extended to the rehearsal room. But then he found confidence in an unlikely place. The story of Alex Honnold's 3,000-foot (914-meter) climb of the El Capitan rock formation at Yosemite National Park."I was sort of quaking in my boots thinking about it.

Then I saw 'Free Solo,' that documentary about the free climber Alex Honnold that won the Academy Award. Amazing, amazing documentary, and I thought to myself, if he can do that without any rope I can do a monologue. And then that was it," Gyllenhaal said.

From then on, it was smooth sailing. It was a little different for Sturridge.  "I feel like weirdly - like before I walk on stage I feel fear. But I feel safest on the stage," Sturridge said.Both actors say the lack of an onstage partner to play off of can add to the stress; there isn't a safety net if you blow a line. But Sturridge uses the audience.

"Normally when you're on stage you're pretending to be in a room and pretending like you're in Russia in the 1920s and you're pretending the audience doesn't exist. But with this, I'm having a conversation with real people who are different every night. And if I blow a line, then we just change the conversation," Sturridge said.