Berlinale Day 10, Part 2: Ledger 'could play Bush'
By Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop in Berlin.
Posted: Sunday, February 19 2006
Actor Heath Ledger is so versatile he could play George Bush. And apparently he took his latest role as a heroin junkie so seriously, he gave himself a black eye and a concussion.
His and Aussie actor Abbie Cornish's performances as junkie lovers in a new Australian film have gained widespread praise here at the Berlin Film Festival.
The bleak Candy has been highly anticipated in Australia but it's failed to excite crowds in the contest for the Golden Bear.
It's made by one of our top theatre directors, Neil Armfield, who heads Sydney's Company B theatre company and based on a novel by Luke Davies, inspired by real-life experiences.
Ledger plays hopeless, numb junkie Dan, whose passionate relationship with young painter Candy (Cornish) turns nightmarish as their addictions deepen.
Cornish gives Candy an intense presence as she goes through prostitution, pregnancy and breakdown, while Ledger plays Dan with such empathy, we feel for him despite his seeming indifference to Candy's fate.
Ledger, who seems uncomfortable with the media attention, has told the left-wing festival that after jumping from gay cowboy to junkie, he could even take on President Bush.
QUOTE(Heath Ledger from the Candy Press Conference | 15 February 2006)
I can generally identify with everyone. I could totally identify with George Bush, if I had to. I can be sympathetic towards any person and figure them out enough to play them and love them as human beings. I know how to breathe and so do they, so that's at least one way I can relate to them.
I've chatted to Armfield in his hotel room, where he's told me Ledger shocked the team by getting violent in a scene in which Dan breaks down in the shower during a detox attempt.
QUOTE(Neil Armfield on Heath)
Heath started to belt himself. He almost knocked himself out - he gave himself concussion and gave himself a black eye, which then we had to mask for the rest of the shoot. He pushed the acting to an unwise extreme, in a sense, but it's there on film. We definitely couldn't do a second take.
Despite the top acting (Geoffrey Rush and Noni Hazlehurst help round out the cast) and evocative scenes, the script's unwavering focus on addiction makes the premise slight and the film unmemorable.
But Armfield's told me Candy's so much more than a story about heroin.
QUOTE
The commercial culture that surrounds us is based on an addiction to pleasure… It's a little example of what the Western society and so many human beings are desperately doing - destroying their lives or destroying the planet in trying to give themselves a bit more pleasure.
I can't say there was anything in the film to highlight that theme, but there are spot-on depictions of the emotional alienation and drug problems that characterise Dan and Candy's generation.
Armfield says he learnt a lot from his cast.
QUOTE
I was quite keen on a lot of rehearsal but Heath and Abbie were quite happy not to rehearse too much… What I learnt from them was how much a leading actor in a film has to take responsibility for their own performance. When the camera is six inches away from you, you just have to have the complete kind of confidence of the moment and you have to kind of stop performing it in a way, particularly with two characters like Dan and Candy... It involved a lot of trust on both sides in finding the way to work.
Ledger told me: "I did try to drag it off the stage a bit but it wasn't a fight ever, it was creative disagreements."
Obviously sick of being badgered about the Oscars, he's given a stern criticism of any film race.
QUOTE(Heath at the Berlin press conference)
Who is the winner? It's such a surreal concept to be competing and to be thrust into a competition. Whether you're acting or directing, everyone's kind of playing different sports and you all start from different lines and you're finishing at a different spot, so we're all just being dragged through it.
I've also asked Armfield why he thinks Aussie theatre companies are facing losses at the moment.
The Sydney Theatre Company's facing its first deficit in 10 years and Armfield's Company B, the Bell Shakespeare Company, Queensland Theatre Company and Circus Oz are also facing losses.
QUOTE(Neil Armfield)
I don't think there's a particular problem at the moment which hasn't always been there - theatre always runs on the smell of an oily rag. The Sydney Theatre Company, everyone has the impression that it's more protected but it's actually not - they rely incredibly heavily on box office. Company B has a wage policy, so everyone who works there is paid the same. It's a pittance really… but I do think there's been a gradual tightening across the years.
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Original Article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate...02/s1573424.htm