Heath Plays House

Perth-born actor Heath Ledger is settling down to play his most important role yet – father and family man.

Ledger, 26, has just sold his house in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles and bought in Brooklyn, New York, so his pregnant girlfriend, actor Michelle Williams, 24, can be closer to her family as the birth of their baby approaches.

Previously reluctant to discuss his relationship with Williams, who he met on the set of their movie Brokeback Mountain, Ledger said in LA this week they were experiencing "just huge amounts of excitement" over the imminent birth.

"I can't wait to meet my child," he told Lawrie Masterson. "We've been preparing, yeah. We're both fit and happy and healthy; that's all you can ask for."

Ledger obviously is enjoying Brooklyn, New York's most populous borough, because of the anonymity it affords him.

"I really appreciate Brooklyn because, quite frankly, no one gives a s**t," he says. "The best thing about Brooklyn is it's removed. I just live a really normal life.

"I lug my laundry down to the laundromat, I keep the house nice and tidy and clean, I go shopping at the supermarket and I cook.

"I commute on the train back and forth, in and out of town, and I sit and observe all these people around me, all these lives and these stories.

"It's really stimulating and I feel like I'm really living for the first time. It's wonderful."

With Williams "eating for two", Ledger has become a capable cook.

"Italian is my forte," he says. "I'm into handmaking pasta now, handmaking gnocchi and fettucini. There's flour everywhere in my kitchen. I like making a mess.

"Michelle does, too. She cooks as well. She's very good."

But while he is revelling in his new Brooklyn home, Ledger is unsure about his future in Sydney, where he recently made the movie Candy. He has a home in beachside Bronte.

"I love going back home and I want to keep doing movies back home and I'm certainly proud of the movie we just finished," he says.

"(But) Sydney – Bronte – is scaring me at the moment. I feel like the paparazzi are going to kick me out of that city. I don't feel like living there any more.

"It's a shame because I obviously love it. It's breaking my heart because you can't go back there. You can't do anything. You don't want to go with your wife and kids down to the beach and swim when there's 10 people photographing you.

"It really is awful so, unfortunately, that's keeping me away from Australia. A lot of other people I know feel the same way."

Ledger's career could not be hotter. He stars in three movies 'screening on consecutive nights at the 62nd annual Venice Film Festival, starting August 31, which must be some kind of record.

Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm and Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain will be in competition, with Lasse Hallstrom's Casanova screening out of competition. Brokeback Mountain, in which Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play gay cowboys, is likely to be the most controversial.

"Michelle's character is my wife in the movie and we have children together," he says. "She has a very tragic story because there's another person in the picture, Jake's character.

"I feared the project immensely and that's part of the reason why I did it. I definitely came out twice as brave, but it was the toughest working experience of my life, hands down.