HOT HOT HEATH

(transcribed by Quackadict on LiveJournal)

Heath Ledger's career has caught fire with Brokeback Mountain. In a gay-media exclusive, he talks about making his acting debut with a gay role on TV and about going the distance with Jake Gyllenhaal.



For an actor who's not the biggest fan of talking to the media, Heath Ledger's been doing plenty of it of late. It helps, of course, that his breakout performance in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain -- a love story about ranch hands Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), who are forced to keep their passion a secret throughout the 1960s and '70s -- has garnered him the best reviews of his relatively brief career. Nonetheless, a Sunday morning at the Toronto International Film Festival finds Ledger a little logy -- he's just come from doing press for Brokeback as well as The Brothers Grimm and Casanova at Italy's Venice festival, and on top of that, he'd gone out the night before with Grimm director Terry Gilliam. Even a little hungover, though, Ledger is charming, articulate, and very straightforward about his career as an actor. "He has a very Western aura, very natural," said Lee about his decision to cast Ledger as Ennis. "The way he speaks and carries himself makes him seem more mature than his actual age. And he looks great on horseback." No argument here. In a relaxed conversation, Ledger talked about everything from his native Australia's mixed feelings about gays to his then-impending fatherhood. (Matilda, his daughter with Brokeback Mountain costar Michelle Williams, was born October 28.)
 

Did you have gay friends tell you what a big deal this movie is for queer audiences? "Dude, this is gonna be major -- don't fuck it up"?

I didn't really need my friends to tell me that. [Alonso laughs.]

I understood that it's an important story and one that hadn't really been told properly. But I knew there was a certain responsibility.
 

What about getting the role? It was my impression that almost every actor wanted to be in this movie.
It was really odd, actually. I read the script and loved it -- it was the most beautiful screenplay I'd ever read. And then that was really it. My agent was like, "They want you to play it" -- Jack, at one point. And I said, "No, I don't really know how to play Jack. I know how to play Ennis. Out of the two characters, I know how to tell his story." And then they started to head toward other people, and so I kind of forgot about it for a while. I went to Australia and did my own thing -- saw my family and stuff. And then when I was there, they came back and said, "It's come your way -- they'd like you for Ennis, and Jake for Jack. Would you meet Ang?" "Of course I'll meet Ang." I went to LA, I flew to New York for 12 hours, and went and had a meeting in [producer] James Schamus's apartment with Ang. We must've been sitting there for about a half an hour, and then I stood up, shook his hand, and left the room. I went back to LA, and a month later or something, I found out that I got the role.

Did Lee get any chattier as the shoot went on? How is he with actors?
He's very selective about the words that escape his mouth. He doesn't seem to have too much interest in getting to know you as a person. He's completely consumed by the story and by filmmaking and the process. That's just the man he is -- it absolutely consumes him. And working with him, it wasn't as collaborative of an experience as I thought it was going to be, in terms of putting together our characters, talking about the movie, talking about the objectives of each character. There were no group discussions about this; it was Ang who pulled us aside individually and injected us with just the right amount of information on our characters, and then just left us. So I didn't really know what Jake had been told or was gonna do; I didn't really know what Michelle had been told or what she was gonna do. It was a curious thing, a curious way of approaching it, because we ended up discovering each other and meeting on-screen, as opposed to over the table.

So no rehearsal at all?
Not really, not that I can recall. Little bits and pieces. I know Michelle and I rehearsed in little bits and pieces. There was one day I can remember that the three of us kind of sat around.

That last kitchen scene?
That was the very first scene we shot!

Which is one of your most challenging scenes in the film.
That was the very fucking first day! I remember sitting in the trailer with Michelle and kind of just sitting there talking about what we were gonna do, and then Ang just walks past the door and is like, "Ha ha ha ha! You make hard scene first day! First day, very hard! Ha ha ha ha ha!" [Alonso laughs.] And he's walking off laughing at us, and we're just looking out the door at him and I'm like, "Oh, fuck -- I've gotta be 40 on the first day!" So he really threw us in the deep end, but I think in doing so he forced us into doing all our homework and absolutely figuring out every aspect of our characters, because so much of the story had already passed by that time.

There was an interview that Ang Lee gave at some point in the production process where he said something along the lines of "We can show Ennis and Jack's feeling for each other through sheepherding," and I think a lot of people get nervous that the movie would back away from the physicality of the relationship, which it certainly doesn't. Was there any kind of negotiating of those scenes, or were you just thrown into it?
No, there had to be choreography involved, purely because for Jake and me, it wasn't a situation where the director could just say, "OK, now just have fun with this and just roll with it." It was delicately planned out. But we didn't really want to rehearse it either; we didn't really want to sit there and go through the motions as well. The rest was just absolutely trusting the story -- convincing ourselves of the love and committing to it 100%. Had we done anything less, it wouldn't have done justice to the story.

Because you just came from the Venice festival and are now here at the Toronto festival, are you getting a lot of the "Eww, what's it like to kiss a guy?" questions? The straight media loves that stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, the straight world seems to be really stuck up on that. That's fine -- it's not like I wasn't prepared for it.

Now, you began your career playing a gay role on Australian television, right?
[Laughs] Yeah!

How did you deal with the media then?
I can't really remember. I actually remember getting harassed on the street.

Really?
Yeah. [Chuckles] So I had small occasions where I'd get bullied on the streets for it! But I was never out to prove myself or my sexuality -- it didn't really bother me. I think if that was an issue, I wouldn't have done the show [Sweat]; I wouldn't have done this film. This character too, in this TV show -- for starters, it was the first job I'd had in front of a camera. I had no idea what I was doing. It was a terrible performance; it was a terrible TV show -- I'm awful in it. But you really can't compare the two -- it's just a teenage kid who confesses to his friend that he's gay. It's not really that interesting, I would say, for you. [Laughs] But no, it was never a concern for me, and the press didn't really pick up on it. I don't think anyone saw the show anyway, you know what I mean? [Laughs] It wasn't like a big hit.

I understand that you sort of stumbled into acting, almost by accident.
No. I mean, I certainly had a curiosity about it, and then I suddenly kind of went in on a casting for that TV show, Sweat, and landed it. And then opportunity just started to pop up. And so for that reason, I've never had a dark room and a black pair of pajamas to walk around in and be creative and make mistakes in a dark room where no one can see you. All my mistakes are on film -- my growing process and learning process is documented. [Alonso laughs] And it always will be -- I want to keep on evolving from here. But yeah, I guess I did somewhat stumble into it. Before I got into the movies, I couldn't care less about films, I'd barely seen any films. My curiosity about movies and making films kind of came upon making my first film, when I started making actual movies. That's when the curiosity came. It certainly wasn't before then -- my parents didn't raise me on watching movies.

How do you perceive gay acceptance in Australia? We sort of get mixed messages: On the one hand, there's the Mardi Gras and we all love Priscilla, and then at the same time, occasionally your prime minister, John Howard, will say something very George Bush-ian.
Well, I don't know. As you said, Sydney is considered the gay capital of the world. But as you said too, we have a prime minister that's... I don't even want to get into it, but he's definitely George Bush's buddy. Unfortunately. So yeah, it is confusing. I think it's like the red states in America, so to speak -- there's definitely issues like they have, which I think are just issues that they have with themselves, obviously. I think it still exists in Australia too -- it's just disguised better. It's more passive, I think. It's hard to answer for a nation.

Is the Australian "pioneer machismo" filtering away as the years pass?
I think so. I think that filtered away in the late '80s and early '90s. Once again, I don't know -- I really haven't lived in Australia for the last nine years. I go back every now and then. I consider myself to be Australian, but I think in much more of a global sense. I don't feel attached to one spot on this earth; I don't feel attached to one society.

You grew up in Perth and surfed a lot there. Do you still live in LA?
No, I moved out of LA, too. I live in Brooklyn.

Oh, nice.
Yeah. Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens area. It's awesome -- I just love it. But yeah, no, I didn't really get much surfing done when I was in LA. For some reason I never associated Los Angeles with surfing and beaches. And I lived so far east -- I didn't really like the west half of Los Angeles. I liked staying in Silver Lake and the Los Feliz area. I associate Australia with beaches and surfing.

There was an interview with you that I read where you basically said that you signed up for the acting part but not the celebrity part. Can you go out and about?
I can in Brooklyn.

But not in LA?
No, and there were three cars that waited at the end of your street. If you were going to the fucking 7-Eleven or going to drop your girl off at yoga or going to the dentist -- anywhere, they just follow you. And it's not that they're sitting there just particularly waiting for me; there just happens to be, I guess, a bunch of celebrities that live in the hills everywhere, and there are cars just everywhere, parked at the bottom of streets. And they know your car, so as soon as you go down there, they follow you. I'm about to have a child -- I don't want to raise my children in that environment. It was hard enough for Michelle to have to feel like she had to outrun these people. She would just turn her car around and not go to an appointment, or she wouldn't go visit a friend because she had cars following her; she would just come home and burst into tears. I figured out ways to outrun them -- I had a very fast 1978 Mustang that I used to just burn through red lights, and it becomes really dangerous.

Well, they'll chase you now. They'll hit your car.
They sure do. It's really a sad way to live life, and it was getting Michelle down too. But I'd been dying to leave LA anyway, because it had been getting to me all this time. I never considered myself to be someone who was gonna stay there for the rest of my life.

It's got to be weird to be one of those people where if you eat somewhere, it winds up in Page Six [the famed New York Post gossip column] or something. I can't imagine that level of public scrutiny when you're just trying to eat a meal.
Yeah, it's really frustrating. I guess there are some people who are better at handling it; there are some people who, I guess, may even like it. It's just not the lifestyle that I wish to lead.

Is there a plus side? Is the material getting better?
Oh, definitely. It's a double-edged sword, you know. With all this frustration and the stalking comes choice. [Sighs] It's really what I make of these choices and these opportunities -- the choices I make will also determine the level of frustration on the other side of the coin. You just don't go out and make Jerry Bruckheimer movies every time. I don't know -- it's a tricky one to balance. But in discovering Brooklyn, there are places in the world where the paparazzi aren't living on every corner.

Has being attractive been better or worse for your career as an actor, in terms of how filmmakers perceive you?
I don't know how to answer that question. Wouldn't I be a particularly cocky person if I could answer that question!

I'm not asking you to say, "Oh, yes, I'm gorgeous." I'm just saying that you've gone out of your way to not take the standard "attractive leading guy" material. I'm wondering if your looks have ever been a hurdle for you.
Not really. I've never felt that to be the reason why I've made these choices, and I've never really found there to be a problem in that area. These choices come from not being able to look a different way but being able to feel a different way and have it arranged within my soul, within my appreciation for life, within my observation of life. Also, just to learn more about myself and about what I do; if you do the same thing over and over again, you just hit a plateau and you just become stagnant and stale and cheesy. I think in order to mature as a person and mature as an actor, you need to push yourself and test yourself and do things you're afraid of.

One of the things that I'm finding interesting about talking to you is that I've never heard your real voice before, your real accent. Your roles run the gamut -- you're American, you're British, you're Irish...
Yeah, it's still a shame that you're forced into studying accents, but there's very few Australian parts. Actually, recently I just finished a movie in Australia called Candy, and it's a love story between two Australian junkies, and that was the first time I could use my own accent in almost eight years. It was really liberating to just... I'd forgotten how free you are to just roam about with your voice and improvise and breathe in your actions and not be conscious of the words that are coming from your mouth. So that was fucking brilliant -- I really, really loved it. I'm gonna go back and do more for that reason; it was just so freeing.

Having played Ennis, on the off chance that your child comes to you with the "Dad, I'm gay" speech, do you think you're ready to hear it now?
Oh, it wouldn't have bothered me beforehand. I don't have a further appreciation for people who are gay; I always have. It's never been an issue for me. Of course, if my child came to me and said that, I'd love them even more for being honest with me.

You went to an all-boys school?
Yeah.

Were any students out then, or was it the sort of thing that was not talked about?
Oh, definitely not. I don't think it was even gossiped about. I'm sure it went on -- it was a boarding school -- but I wasn't a boarder there. I was a day boy, so I missed out on any of that gossip.

I understand that because you've got a baby on the way, you're taking a little time off?
Yeah. Michelle's obviously been carrying our child child around for the last nine months, and prior to that, she was carrying me around! [Alonso laughs] For the nine months while I was working, she was following me from job to job graciously. So now when that child arrives, I feel it's my time to be Mr. Mom while she gets out there and does some work. She really wants to get work again, and I'd like to support her. And I'm just tired. I feel like I'm just dry, that I've run myself and am just out of gas. I need to suck up some life in order to portray it again.

You've dated a lot of actresses -- is that just because those are the people you meet in your life, or is there something about the way that your life works that they get more than somebody who isn't in the industry would?
I think it's a bit of both. At the end of the day, when you're working so much, there's not that many occasions that you're in any other environment other than this and can meet people other than the ones you're working with sometimes, so quite often they're the people whom you choose to be with.

What would you like to see happen with Brokeback? What do you want audiences to get out of it, and what do you want for you professionally?
You know, I don't know. I think it'll just find its way naturally. I'm not sure of what path I wish it to take. My job's done; I'm proud of the film, so I'm not really going to walk around from now on thinking about how people will receive it or how it affects me. Fortunately, as you said, I'm having a child in a month or so, and the timing couldn't be better because there's all this hype and excitement about this movie. I've got a lot of films that I'm promoting right now, and it's all so insignificant in comparison to meeting my child. It's such a gift, I think.

It forces perspective.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

You've worked with some incredible directors over the last couple of years. Tell me about working with Terry Gilliam on Brothers Grimm -- that must've been educational.
To say the least. I think the world is a better place with Terry and his films. I really, really appreciate him and his movies. If I've been a fan of anyone's movies or if I've really wanted to be in a movie, it's Terry Gilliam and his Monty Python films. I just adore them. And apart from being such a wonderful director, he's quite obviously a wonderful, wonderful father too. He has these three beautiful children, and they're such beautifully honest people, and just their eyes... they just have open eyes and open faces and open hearts. Michelle and I believe that what he did right was, upon becoming a father, he never retired himself. He never retired Terry Gilliam and became this "parent" -- he doesn't judge his children, he lets his children inspire more out of him. So they love him on the level that we all do too -- they appreciate him like we do. That's really been a good lesson for me to learn, to become that.

And now you've also got Casanova, which is directed by Lasse Hallström -- who, I imagine, is probably different from Gilliam or Lee, stylistically.
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, it's certainly not Fellini's Casanova, and I knew that going into it. It was also, for me, a real opportunity after Brokeback; I went straight from Brokeback to Venice for five months to shoot Casanova. Brokeback Mountain was such a lonely, harrowing experience at times, so Casanova became this wonderful space to unwind on.

One thing I forgot to ask you: Tell me about the physical requirements of doing Brokeback. Obviously, there was a lot of horseback riding.
Yeah, I didn't grow up riding horses, but I was around horses from an early age. I started riding in my early teens. But I've ridden a lot [betwen A Knight's Tale] and Brother's Grimm and Four Feathers and Ned Kelly... always shooting film on bloody horseback.

And you have calluses to prove it.
Yeah, exactly. Originally Ang -- one thing I kind of disagreed with him on was, he wanted us to bulk up. Jake was already bulked up anyway -- he'd come off some movie where he had to work out.

Jarhead?
No, this was before Jarhead. He was just bulked up -- he works out, I don't. Ang said, "Now, I want you to be big, big" -- I think he just wanted us to look a little more sculpted so it would be sexy. I really disagreed -- I thought, for one, Ennis is a ranch hand, where you starved and don't eat anything. So I actually wanted him to be thin and wiry, and I didn't want him to have a sculpted body -- I thought that would kind of take you out of...

The '60s?
The '60s, and into a completely different film. That, and I'm lazy. [Both laugh] So I didn't bulk up.

It's always tricky to age people in a movie, and there's this great close-up on you in Ennis's last scene with his daughter, Alma JR. It doesnt' look like you have a lot of makeup on, but it's all in your face. There's this real weight of experience and time and age in your face that you don't have at the beginning of the movie, and that moment.. I was just really impressed by that.
It's hard to explain how you do it or how you get there. Sometimes it's very easy to over-intellectualize what we do, to explain exactly where our thought comes from. I think sometimes you're forced into just making shit up.

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