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One of Hollywood's hottest young actors, Heath Ledger has probably the busiest schedule at the years Venice Film Festival, with three headline-grabbing films on show.
Ledger said that he was beginning to feel the pressure: "It's been really overwhelming, I mean it is obviously an honour to have my movies here, one movie let alone having to bear the responsibility of representing three movies. It's taxing you know, it's exhausting. I don't know where I am right now, I'm kind of floating, I'm having out of body experiences when I'm talking to people, I feel like every sentence I say is the same as the very last sentence I just said and every word that escapes my mouth is the same word that it just followed, you know, it's just very confusing. It's very exhausting as I just said, but I'm trying as hard as I can to represent all three films with enthusiasm."
Ledger is starring in Ang Lee's groundbreaking gay western, 'Brokeback Mountain' and the comedy romp 'Casanova.'
NOT INTERESTED IN BED-HOPPING ANTICS
The Hollywood heartthrob denies he has any interest in the bed-hopping antics of the 17th century dilettante.
He said: I take great pride in my soul and the consistency and longevity of my love and I think everyone can fantasise about the notion of being a Casanova, or experiment that way when they are younger, but I'm certainly not in that place now at this moment in my life."
The 26-year-old has been so busy he probably won't have had time to read the reviews of his third Venice offering, 'The Brothers Grimm.' Unfortunately, they make for grim reading.
The fantasy adventure about fairytale scribes Will and Jacob Grimm has already opened in the US, where it was mauled by reviewers. Criticism of the film, which stars also Matt Damon, ranged from "too slight and superficial" to "nothing more than noise, costumes and disjointed special effects".
BOGUS WITCH-HUNTERS
Directed by Terry Gilliam, the film stars Damon and Ledger as the 19th Century German writers, who in the film have English accents, starting out as bogus witch-hunters before getting drawn into the real thing.
Some of the Grimm's creations, Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and Rapunzel, are woven into the film, which features surreal scenes such as a horse swallowing a child, and a moving forest. British actress Lena Headey plays a local tracker and a 500-year-old Mirror Queen is played by Italian beauty Monica Bellucci.
Both the actors wanted to be in the movie because of Gilliam's comedy work with the British Monty Python gang.
Despite the negativity the film has been enduing in the USA, Gilliam
was taken solace that he was among true film lovers in Venice.
EXCITED TO BE IN VENICE
He said: "It's enthusiastic and it's good, it's what cinema should be like, it's not just product here, this is for people who are really excited by cinema, excited by actors when they come here. I mean the actors of course, well we are all excited to be in Venice, it's a great place so this is the perfect combination."
Gilliam, who made his name with 'Jabberwocky,' 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and 'Twelve Monkeys,' is set to release a small-scale low budget version of the Mitch Cullin novel Tideland.
The Anglophile, American-born, director has said in the past that he lost confidence after the catastrophe-hit 'The Man who Killed Don Quixote', starring Johnny Depp, collapsed in 2000, and 'The Brothers Grimm' is his first movie since 1998.
Gilliam bemoaned the frustrating marathon of getting a movie on screen.
He said: "I've got a lot of projects that never got anywhere, maybe one day they will get made but you just keep ploughing on and one shouldn't feel too pissed off because I am lucky to be making movies and I'm lucky to be working with good people. I've become much more calm in my old age."