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Mama's boy: Jake Gyllenhaal says his first dates wind up at 'my mother's house'

The Academy Award-nominated actor says his mom thinks he'd "do a lot better" if she set him up.
/ Source: TODAY

Ready for a romantic evening with Jake Gyllenhaal? Get ready to meet his mom.

As a recent guest on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the Academy Award-nominated actor revealed he's "single," perhaps because of his first-date strategy.

"I always bring my dates to my mother's house for the first date," said the 34-year-old "Accidental Love" star, whose comment elicited laughter from the studio audience. "I think that's a good move."

Jake Gyllenhaal and mother Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal and mother Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal are pictured in January.FilmMagic

In a video posted Friday to DeGeneres' EllenTube website, Gyllenhaal added that his mom, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, thinks he'd "do a lot better" if she set him up with prospective significant others — but that hasn't happened yet.

"She thinks arranged marriages actually might be able to work," he said.

While DeGeneres shifted focus to the breadth of his work — ranging from the upcoming movie "Southpaw" to a three-performance staging of "Little Shop of Horrors" — Gyllenhaal noted that the studio audience seemed more interested in his relationship status than they were in his theatrical project.

"It's a really good show!" he said, smiling.

Countered DeGeneres, playing to her crowd, "And he's single in it!"

And DeGeneres couldn't let Gyllenhaal leave without surprising everyone with a photo of him when he contributed to an earlier musical endeavor: his old band, Holeshot.

Laughing and holding his head in one hand after seeing the vintage pic of the rock quintet from his teenage years, he offered an aesthetic assessment.

"That's one good-looking band right there," he said.

Follow TODAY.com writer Chris Serico on Twitter.