The newest Broadway revival of Othello opened at the Barrymore Theatre March 23, and star Jake Gyllenhaal is still basking in the afterglow.

Gyllenhaal visited The Late Show with Stephen Colbert March 24 and was in a reflective mood. Othello marks Gyllenhaal's professional Shakespeare debut, following a brief performance in high school, and when he had last seen Colbert, he had expressed some anxiety at the prospect of the project.

"The idea of doing Shakespeare, just generally, is frightening, But think about doing it with one of your acting idols!" Gyllenhaal shared. "Going toe-to-toe in that way was even more imposing."

Compound that fear with the fact that he was playing Iago, one of Shakespeare's most iconic and complex villains, and he was shouldering a lot of personal pressure on opening night. "It's a long line of extraordinary actors who have played this role, and I've watched all their performances. Iago is an intimidating character to play and to watch. You feel yourself in the history of that character."

Gyllenhaal's loving approach to the character may seem unusual at first, but once he was in the weeds, he found it threaded deeply within the text. "There's a deep love between Othello and Iago. I think that they, the two of them and their relationship, is what this production is about. I think what Iago does, all the cliches that tend to get thrown on Iago, hopefully kind of slip away a little bit... He is known as one of Shakespeare's great villains, yes, but I think the two of them have been through battle upon battle. They have done things for each other to save each other's lives, to be there for each other in ways that I think Iago probably feels no one else could or has ever or will ever do. At the beginning of the play, Othello himself says 'It's been nine months since they've seen any battle.' These are two soldiers who've been at battle for seven years before that, pretty much all the time, and they've had a nine-month break and in the nine-month break, Othello falls in love with Desdemona, and also decides that he's going to appoint someone else as his lieutenant." Gyllenhaal pauses, widening his eyes as the live audience makes a sound of recognition. "There are a number of reasons for the jealousy to start."

Andrew Burnap, who plays Cassio, the lieutenant Othello placed above Iago, was also on the interview circuit March 24, visiting The Kelly Clarkson Show. Check out his interview below.