Brokeback’s Other Love
24 December 2005
By LOUIS B. HOBSON -- Calgary Sun



NEW YORK — In seven short years, Michelle Williams has gone from the youth TV series Dawson’s Creek to the award-winning Brokeback Mountain.

For her role as a ’60s housewife who discovers her cowboy husband (Heath Ledger) is having a homosexual affair, Williams has earned both an Independent Spirt and Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actress.

She will likely find herself with a similar Oscar nod.

“From my first meeting with Ang Lee to seeing the movie up there on the screen, it’s felt like a charmed project,” says Williams. “It’s the culmination of everything that I’ve ever wanted or thought about in the work I’ve done in the past.”

Brokeback Mountain brought Williams more than accolades. It found her a lover in Ledger.

She gave birth to their daughter Matilda in October.

Of working with and falling in love with Ledger in Calgary during the filming of Brokeback, Williams says it was “such truly separate experiences.

“For me the two didn’t really meet. I feel like the two experiences existed on separate time planes.

“We were so immersed in our film roles on set, but then became ourselves once we left the set. We were never the same people. We couldn’t be because of the roles we were playing.”

Williams says she knows the exact minute she decided to name her daughter Matilda. It was on a New York subway.

“I came up with it on the subway one day. It just fell from the sky and into my head. I love, absolutely love, the Roald Dahl book Matilda.

“I didn’t think about it at the time, but then afterwards, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the girl I want my daughter to be. She’ll reads lots of books and make things move with her eyes. Yes, that’ll be my daughter, for sure.”