Man Of The Year: Heath Ledger
By: R. Burke |
Friday March 17, 2006 |
| Ledger talks about his character, intolerance, Michelle Williams, being a new dad, Oscar buzz and his other films this year. |
| What attracted you to this role?
Heath Ledger: Many things. Ang Lee attracted me to the script. Once I read it, I thought it was probably the most beautiful screenplay I'd ever read. I had a real lump in my throat. It felt like it was a story that hadn't been put on the screen - which is rare to come across. All the elements were there. There was a perfect story and a character for me to play, or attempt to play. I felt that I'd be crazy to walk away from it. You developed an interesting voice for him although he doesn't say much. It was an interesting experiment. Sometimes you can say more without words. You've got the freedom to actually say whatever you want, really. You're going off script essentially. I really had to do a lot of investigation into what exactly he was fighting against. What was his battle within and why did he have such an inability to express and to love? Once I discovered that, I then wanted to kind of "physical-ize" it. I wanted his inabilities to express and love to come through his body and through his speech. I wanted him, in any form of expression, to be painful. I wanted him to be a clenched fist and so even my mouth became a clenched fist. It was all very tight. It was just a great deal of thought and investigation. And essentially I discovered more and asked more questions about Ennis than he would have in his entire life. That was his problem is that he didn't even understand that he had these battles, otherwise he might have stopped and tried to do something about it. And so then knowing that, essentially I then had to go in with all this information but then in front of the camera I had to think less. If you were playing a lawyer or a doctor, I might ask what did you learn about lawyers and doctors. What was it like to play a gay man and what did you learn about gay people? For one, it's not an occupation (laughs). I could have actually taught Ennis something about loving. Unlike Ennis I enjoy love. I'm very expressive. I've investigated love and he didn't. I didn't walk away suddenly going, 'Oh jeez, y'know what? Wow, men and men, they can express, and it'sïthey can love, wow!' I think I had an understanding of that already. I never feared that it existed and it was never really a huge issue of mine. It wasn't some great revelation of mine that this was possible. What did you like about Ennis? I guess his potential. He had great potential to love. I think the one time you really see the potential is with his kids. That's the one form of love he's really allowed to express because it's not dangerous to him. With his wife, it just wasn't really love. It was just what he thought should be love. It was a routine that he slipped into cause it was conventional. It was traditional and his love for Jack was forbidden. He hated himself for it. He punished himself for it. Essentially, he was a a homophobic man in love with another man. I guess I always had faith in the love within him a lot more than he did. I think that's what all the characters found in him too. There was potential within this masculine figure to be vulnerable. Jake said kissing a man is a very exfoliating experience. Would you agree? Yeah, it was certainly rough. At the end of the day, once the first take was over, all the mystery went flying out the window. It was like, 'ah, okay, shit, whatever.' It was pretty obvious to us that neither of us really cared anymore. Then it's like, 'okay, it's just a person. Next shot. Can we just get on with the day?' We didn't have to like kind of make little Freudian jokes about it and kind of giggle. The crew was very respectful and mature, so that's the way we kind of handled it as well. Ang said he felt it was much more genuine because you didn't do rehearsals. He's absolutely right. Particularly on my part. I can't speak for Jake. He had the harder character to play in that aspect because he had to look kind of schooled and very comfortable and confident. This is where I think Ang really captured something. I didn't have to hide any little anxiety or nerves that I had. I was a virgin to the situation as Ennis was, so I just kind of used that. I was like, 'why hide it when this is what it should be?' Did you ever have doubts about playing it? I'm always very back and forth about any role that I choose. After getting a role, I'll call up my agent and say, "How can I get out of this? I can't do it. I shouldn't do it. I fooled them." This was no exception to that rule, but I know what you're getting at. People, I guess, in the past have been nervous and they connected to it being a risk and personal fears and anxieties. I guess I never felt I was putting anything at risk. I'm quite ruthless about my career. If it left because of making a creative choice of this nature, why would I want to be in an industry that does that? I looked at it as a beautiful opportunity to work with this brilliant material and with this brilliant director. And it was a part of a year of work where I kind of lined up from Terry Gilliam's film, The Brothers Grimm to Lords of Dogtown to Brokeback, and then to Casanova and then to Candy, which is a love story between junkies. It was just part of this kind of collection of hopefully diverse performances and characters. This was one of a compilation of things that I was attempting to kind of expel or create. You and Michelle play a couple that is falling apart and in real life you were falling together. Was that a hindrance? Not at all. If anything, it just made it more interesting. I think it would have made it more boring if we were, like, falling in love on screen. It would have been just easy and obvious. It was just something that was very beautiful and deep. We're both very professional and we're both there from the beginning with the same goals. We wanted to do the best job possible and do justice to this story. What about becoming a father? How scary is that? I wouldn't say it's as scary as the last five roles. It's definitely more exciting and a lot more beautiful. It's definitely my greatest achievement. It's just beautiful. There's something cosmic about it. I understand you're doing a lot more dishes. Yeah, happily. What else am I gonna do? We're so bloody helpless. In the birthing process, you come out just realizing how stupid and weak men are. I might as well not be in there. When you walk out, it's like such an intimidating process witnessing how beautiful this primal kind of strength that women have. It just exceeds anything that's within men. And you just feel like leaving there and going out and taking steroids and going to the gym and then starting a war. It kind of explains a lot about our society. It's like overcompensating for our lack of strength. I'm not starting a war though, I'm just doing dishes. Michelle said being a mother gave her insight into her character after the fact. Did it give you an insight on some of the choices that Ennis makes? No. I'm born to be a father. I've been looking forward to this all my life. Unlike Ennis, I think I said this before, I'm very expressive and in touch with love and my girls. I don't think I've learned any more by Ennis. I don't think I could. You've Casanova coming out. In one movie you're gay and in the other you're a ladies man. Was that done on purpose? Yeah, it was a plan of attack. As I said, it was part of a clump of movies. What was kind of manufactured was the fact that I knew one was kind of militant and it was going to be an acting battle. Casanova was just going to be like a lifestyle choice. I didn't have to take acting or myself or Casanova, for that matter, too seriously cause we were essentially just kind of borrowing his name and his legend to have fun with it. And that's exactly what we did. We went there and drank tons of wine, ate tons of past and floated around in gondolas, really. It looks like you were just having a party, actually. Yeah, but that was kind of the point. I was so totally wound up from Brokeback and I couldn't unwind at home doing the dishes cause I'd probably smash too many of them. I knew I had to unwind professionally because it was my profession that wound me up so tight. This was just that and it was a perfect vehicle for relaxation. Are you looking forward to awards season? I don't know. The only time it's swirling around me or the movie is like when I'm kind of here talking to you guys. It's a real strange concept to me. It's obviously an honor for the film to be in that category. It's also such a strange concept that films and acting can be competed against another. All films and all performances, aren't running the same race. We're all doing different sports and we're all training differently. So, you can't really compare them. I think it's all manufactured for marketing reasons. We can't help but get dragged into it...and ultimately what it ends up doing is other peoples' opinions kind of drag us as actors and filmmakers into this false sense of success if they nominate you and then certainly a false sense of failure when you don't win. Long story short though, it's great to be in a movie that's being well received. What about the irony of playing a gay role can bring Oscar buzz, but being gay can kill a career? Why isn't it the same with gay actors playing straight? That's another question. I think it's a bit silly. The whole 'that it's daring and that it's brave.' Firefighters are daring and brave. We're just acting. I'm quite safe right now. I'm not hurt. It didn't damage me. I'm alive. I didn't really have to be that brave. I was just doing something that I like to do; I was performing and portraying. I think it's a shame that it's built up too much. I think it shouldn't be such a big deal. Hopefully, this movie will slowly start to kind of open people's eyes and hearts and imagination. I think it's quite a shame where we live in a world where people are so eager to voice their opinions and disgust concerning the ways in which people choose to love one another. Shouldn't we be expressing our concerns towards the way people express anger? It just doesn't make sense to me. We certainly didn't go into this movie with any political intentions, but if it helps someone kind of accept other forms of love, than it's certainly not a bad thing. What about the morality police who don't need to see this film to know what it's about? Maybe they should go and pick up a copy of one of Sigmund Freud's books, then they'll probably understand where their battle is coming from. |
