Heath Gets Needle

By Robin Walker
29 October 2006

Heath Ledger's new film Candy takes the actor back home to Australia, playing a heroin-addicted poet. Heath talks about using his own accent and the perils of chasing authenticity in the drug world

AUSTRALIAN star Heath Ledger seems determined to shake up his Hollywood hunk image.

Fresh from his depiction of a gay cowboy in the acclaimed Brokeback Mountain, the 28-year-old from Perth plays a heroin-addicted poet in the Australian indie flick Candy.

At least he got a chance to make a film Down Under again. Heath and newcomer Abbie Cornish, as Candy, play a drug-addicted couple struggling to keep their love alive - all in his own native pronunciation, of course.

"I thoroughly enjoyed being free of the constraints of an accent," Heath admits. "It's a novel thing too because it has been eight years since I used my own accent."

The New York-based actor loved being in a good local film as well, he says. "I love to tell Australian stories and there's just so few of them back there right now. The pickings are slim."

After big productions like Casanova and The Brothers Grimm, this is a small budget indie with a hard edge. And Geoffrey Rush playing a gay chemistry professor.

"I had no desperate desire to play a junkie, it was just something I hadn't done before," Heath says. "It was just so comfortable and relaxed working with wonderful people like Abbie."

Candy is loosely based on the story of drug addict Luke Davis, who was also a consultant on the set.

"He was there to tell us things we wouldn't know, like when you're high on heroin your eyes aren't like that, but your eyebrows are up."

Doing research Heath encountered an addict at the Sydney Narcotics Users Association who used a fake arm with lifelike veins to teach him how to inject. It was an education in the horrors of the addict's world.

"They're designed to teach nurses how to find veins and he was like 'ooh, look at that vein'. He was salivating at the mouth," the actor recalls.

"He later shot up through his knuckles because all his veins had gone. It was just excruciating watching him."

All the fuss about the Oscar-nominated Brokeback Mountain surprises the down-to-earth Australian. "I was so grateful to be given that opportunity and really proud of it, but I'm now happy it's over because it was exhausting."

Next up, Heath's keeping with the diversity of his rocketing movie stardom in the Bob Dylan film portrait I'm Not There. After that it's another Hollywood blockbuster with him signing to play The Joker in the next Batman instalment, The Dark Knight, again starring Christian Bale.

"He's going to be really sinister," Heath insists about his version of The Joker. "It's going to be less about his laugh and pranks and much more about him being a really nasty guy."

This is Heath's most high-profile Hollywood role and he admits his Brokeback Mountain Oscar nomination has opened doors. In 2001 he won a ShoWest award for the Male Star of Tomorrow for playing Mel Gibson's son in The Patriot. That same year he starred in the worldwide hit A Knight's Tale.

Heath is struggling to get used to being a celebrity. "Most of the time you don't even know the paparazzi are there. That's the scary thing. It's really strange and invading, and I'm still working it all out," he says.

That's part of the reason Heath has sold up his home in New South Wales and settled in Brooklyn, New York City, with his fiancée Michelle Williams and their baby daughter Matilda Rose.

"Brooklyn seems to me the closest thing in America to Europe. The neighbours, the locals are beautiful people. It's like a village."

And fatherhood has Heath gushing about his year-old daughter. "Matilda is adorable and beautifully observant. Michelle and I love her so much. Becoming a father exceeds all my expectations."

Early in his career Heath moved to Los Angeles to try to crack acting. Ironically it was a small film shot in Australia, Two Hands, that got him started. But he still has a soft spot for Los Angeles and Hollywood.

"People love to bash LA but it's a truly wonderful pace. You don't have to go to Beverly Hills - you don't have to go to the parties. You can live up in the Lower Canyon and have a perfectly healthy fun life with all your friends."

• Candy opens this Friday.


Source: Sunday Life