Dec. 08, 2005

Heath Ledger, actor

By Stephen Galloway
Hollywood Reporter Online
(This profile originally appeared in the Actors issue, published Dec. 12, 2005)

Everyone wants to know: What was it like for a straight man, especially one who has just played the famed lover Casanova, to engage in an onscreen sex scene with another man?

For Australian actor Heath Ledger, who did precisely that with Jake Gyllenhaal for Ang Lee's acclaimed Focus Features drama "Brokeback Mountain," the answer is simple. "Look, everyone wants me to go, 'Yes, it was difficult and horrible and the worst thing you could do,' but at the end of the day, it was just kissing a human being," he says. "The first take was a little awkward -- it was new territory, so to speak -- but afterward it was, 'Get on with the job.'"

Ledger, who has drawn raves for his performance, admits that he found the role one of the most challenging of his career -- far more complex than Buena Vista's romantic comedy "Casanova," which he shot in Venice, Italy, right after "Mountain." Portraying Ennis Del Mar in "Mountain" required the actor to create a character who keeps his emotions close, a Wyoming cowboy who battles his attraction to another man during their 20-year relationship.

According to Ledger, the key to mastering his character was finding the way he spoke.

To help him capture the accent and cadence of Ennis' speech, the actor worked with a voice coach and studied tapes of Wyoming locals.

"Most of my preparation was in finding the voice so that with the accent, I could find his soul," Ledger says. "A lot of my time (also) went into trying to represent his inner battle through his posture, or lack of posture, both physically and emotionally. That was the challenge for me -- and hardening myself."

He adds: "I have a kind-of frantic and nervous energy, and I thought that would be my biggest battle -- trying to stay still. But once we got out to the wilderness (near Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where 'Mountain' was shot) and were surrounded by these mountains and rivers and trees, you truly become a product of the environment. That's what I wanted -- and then the stillness just came quite naturally."

Something else came quite naturally as well: romance. It was on the set of "Mountain" that Ledger met his companion Michelle Williams, with whom he has a baby girl.

But Ledger dismisses the notion that their real-life feelings for each other made it more taxing to portray a couple whose marriage is on the rocks.

"No, not at all -- we are all professionals," he says. "It wasn't like a high school environment, where we are all gossiping on set. If there was a love affair going on, it was off-screen at home -- and then when we were on the set, it was work, and we all wanted to do the best job possible."