wywiad

Nieee, w starszym, z dnia moich urodzinek.. Wink

9 marca.

szkoda... bym sobie przeczytała Sad

Heath Ledger zagra Boba Dylana
megafon.pl

2006-05-05 09:40
Heath Ledger wystąpi w głównej roli w biograficznym obrazie o Bobie Dylanie "I'm Not There".

Australijczyk zastąpi Colina Farrela pierwotnie typowanego na jednego z odtwórców postaci legendarnego muzyka. O zmianie obsady w ostatniej chwili zadecydował reżyser, Todd Haynes. Ledger będzie jednym z siedmiu aktorów, którzy podejmą się sportretowania Boba Dylana. W postać artysty wcielą się także Richard Gere i Christian Bale. W produkcji wystąpią ponadto Cate Blanchett i Julianne Moore. Zdjęcia rozpoczną się latem.

Na ścieżkę muzyczną trafią utwory Dylana w wykonaniu takich artystów jak The White Stripes czy Aimee Mann.

Heatha Ledgera ostanio można było podziwiać w dramacie 'Tajemnica Brokeback Mountain' i kostiumowym dziele 'Casanova'.

Todd Haynes ma już doświadczenie w przybliżaniu widzom środowiska muzycznego. W 1998 roku zrealizował obraz "Idol", ukazujący zjawisko glam rocka. W filmie zagrali m.in.: Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Christian Bale i Toni Collette. Choć wszystkie postacie były fikcyjne, wzorowano je na autentycznych wykonawcach z lat 70. Projekt otrzymał nominację do Oscara za kostiumy.

Wiadomości

Heath Ledger i Michelle Williams ponownie razem
(Screendaily, Gal/23 maja 2006 07:44)

Michelle Williams dołączyła... do swojego partnera życiowego w obsadzie filmu "I'm Not There" Todda Haynesa, opowiadającego o życiu Boba Dylana.

Ledger, który zastąpił Colina Farrella, jest jednym z sześciu odtwórców legendarnego muzyka w różnych etapach jego życia. Oprócz niego w filmie zagrają Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale i Ben Wishaw. Do obsadzie pozostał jeszcze "jeden" Dylan.

Niedawno do obsady dołączyły Julianne Moore i Charlotte Gainsbourg. Teraz przyszło na Michelle Williams, która z Ledgerem spotkała nia na planie dramatu "Tajemnica Brokeback Mountain".

Budżet produkcji szacowany jest na 15 milionów dolarów. Zdjęcia rozpoczną się w lipcu w Montrealu.

Wśród współpracowników Haynesa znaleźli się opertor Ed Lachman, scenograf Jan Roelfs oraz kostiumolog John Dunn.

Na ścieżkę muzyczną trafią utwory Dylana w wykonaniu takich artystów jak The White Stripes, Aimee Mann, PJ Harvey oraz Michael Stipe z R.E.M.

Może to nie wywiad, ale bardzo obszerny artykuł o...

HOMEBOY
by Janet Hawley
Good Weekend
April 8 2006

Just how did a Perth kid with no acting training end up with an Oscar nomination and a fabulous pad in Brooklyn? Janet Hawley spends several New York moments with our Heath, who speaks out about those paparazzi bad-boy rumours and why he had to flee Australia.

I've flown to America and the severe blonde customs officer fingerpriting me and examining my journalist's visa, barks her interrogation on who I'm interviewing in New York. "Heath Ledger," I reply. Instantly she melts, honeyed voice confiding: "He and Michelle came through my line last week" Blushing she lifts a pink plastic paperclip from her drawer. "This is Heath's; it was clipped to his passport. I told them I wanted them to win Oscars for Brokeback" Clenching the paperclip transformed into a talisman by the alchemy of Hollywood she falteringly offers: "You could give it back to Heath... " I tell her she should keep it.

A day later, I'm watching the embodiment of her adoration dancing animatedly around his four-storey New York home, holding his six month-old daughter Matilda, talking with the speed of a rapper, and snuggling his beaming partner, actress Michelle Williams. There's no trace of the stiff-bodied, clenched-jaw, monosyllabic cowboy Ennis or his downtrodden wife Alma, the roles they played in Brokeback Mountain, the pivotal film that changed their lives with extraordinary synchronicity.

Ledger was the hot young movie star with a bad-boy reputation, who suddenly stunned audiences with his profound performance as the stoic gay cowboy Ennis Del Mar, winning an Oscar nomination. Williams, former star of TV teen soap Dawson's Creek, came out of nowhere to also gain an Oscar nomination for her role, and is now permanently at Ledger's side.
After a four-hour lunch in a local cafe, downing steak and chips, chocolate mousse and good red wine, the fiercely private Ledger had wrapped himself in his sheepskin coat, woolly hat and gloves and, unexpectedly, invited me to walk with him along freezing, snow-piled footpaths to see his new home, and meet his family and Australian house guests.

He is only 26, this boy from Perth, but his stature, deep voice, strong good looks and recent maturity as an actor give him a gravitas that seems way beyond his years. He exudes an indefinable physical charisma that, like Bill Clinton or Mick Jagger, makes all eyes turn to him. "It's not that you know they're celebrities," observes actor Rachel Griffiths, who starred with Ledger in Ned Kelly in 2003. "They could walk anonymously into a Zulu village, and still have that Über-man effect."

UPSTAIRS IN A TRIPLE-GARAGE HOUSE IN BROOKLYN, we walk in on Michelle, petite and 25, having the final fitting of her deep-yellow Vera Wang dress for the Oscars. It's the week before the awards. She's surrounded by a circle of people pinning and primping, with a dazzling heap of bling on the dining table that may or may not be stitched on.

Drawing me aside in the kitchen as he uncorks a bottle of red wine, Ledger murmurs: "The dark-haired lady who doesn't blink is Vera Wang. She doesn't sew, she just directs. We've been teasing Michelle that if she stands with her legs together in this dress, she'll look like an Oscar."

So what's he wearing? Ledger slaps on an elite British accent to explain that Dunhill gave him a handmade tuxedo, even sent two bowlerhatted tailors across from London for fittings.

What does it feel like, walking that red carpet in awards ceremonies? "Surreal," he responds. "Like diving into an Olympic pool, swimming the length underwater, then emerging gasping for breath. It's so noisy that it's quiet, you can't hear; the flashlights are so blinding that it's dark, you can't see."

He'll be relieved when the award season is over. The studio puts them up in Chateau Marmont, hotel for Hollywood's hippest stars, where comedian John Belushi famously died after injecting a speedball of heroin and cocaine. "We had Belushi's room last time,' Ledger grimaces.

After the Oscars, "HM&M", as Ledger calls the family trio, have a week's holiday in California's Napa Valley, then go back to Brooklyn to settle properly into their new home. "I'll show you through the house," Ledger offers, touring me through every room of the gracious 1860s residence. The clearly adored Matilda's room is next to the main bedroom. There's an excellent collection of music, sound and camera equipment, all pointers to Ledger's yearning to direct and produce his own films.

His books are still being shipped over from the beachside dreamhouse in Sydney's Bronte that he spent a year renovating, and hoped to make their main home, but sold after they'd only lived in it for 10 nightmarish days. "It sucks that I can't live in my own country," he says, choking up with emotion.

Should I admit that I was surprised that Ledger invited me home. It was amazing enough that he agreed to a two-day interview. It took 15 metres of emails and countless international phone calls to progress through layers of local and American film-world minders, to finally be granted a time, which always felt likely to be cancelled.

I was constantly reminded that the actor loathes interviews, which he often reduces to bouts of fidgeting and mumbling. He's been so burned by stalking paparazzi, gossip columnists and manipulated TV interview clips that have cast him with a rude, boredbrat image that he's inclined to paint all media with the same brush.

But in the two days I spend with him, his initial wariness relaxes into friendliness, warmth and humour. Indeed, I'm allowed to tickle Matilda's tummy, and I get a spontaneous hug and kiss from Ledger when I leave. On day two he makes lunch for us both in his kitchen while eagerly discussing everything from teething to art.

Often Ledger resembles a skittish thoroughbred colt; instincts highly tuned lanky limbs rarely still. He seems a hyperactive bundle of energy, who "can't stop myself spewing out ideas" for creative projects he's writing, planning to direct and film. I venture that he might have been labelled ADHD and given medication, and he nods in agreement, adding he finds the idea shocking.

Then he segues to pools of calm, reflective, measured thought; then into darker places, where he talks of being hurt, invaded and betrayed to the core. The more you learn about the rollercoaster life of this former day student of Guildford Grammar, the privileged private school where West Australian farmers and graziers often send sons to board, two qualities stand out.

First is his drive to become a great and versatile actor, when - apart from school plays - he's never had an acting lesson in his life. The other is his ability - mature beyond his years - to take control -of his own life and destiny, remaining well grounded and non-narcissistic in this age of celebrity narcissism. Ledger got lucky early, got smart early, and instead of burning out early in a Tinseltown scrapheap, re-directed his career.
It's been three-phase. Teen idol sex god, knight-on-horseback sex god - he'd rather both disappear - to serious actor wanting longevity.

LEDGER HAS MADE 16 FILMS. The Latest, much-anticipated feature is Candy, adapted from Luke Davies' compelling novel of love and heroin addiction, in which he stars alongside Abbie Cornish and Geoffrey Rush (it'll be released on May 25).

But it's his 14th, Brokeback Mountain, the risky independent film by Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, that's been the monumental milestone in both his and Williams' lives. They met and fell in love on the lonely set, and as co-star Jake Gyllenhaal quips: "Heath and I made out, but Heath and Michelle had the baby." (Ledger bashfully admits that they "actually conceived at Byron Bay"). Now top directors with splendid scripts are queueing to work with him, and his fee has skyrocketed. (It was small on Brokeback Mountain, but he has a percentage of gross, so will do well.)

After Brokeback, Ledger (with Williams in tow) spent six months in Venice making Casanova, then early last year came to Sydney to film Candy, with director Neil Armfield. But his growing fame was starting to prove a poisoned chalice. He swears that, to give him a more saleable bad-boy image, a clique of paparazzi in Australia fabricated claims he spat at them when they disrupted a night shoot of Candy, an allegation whipped along by gossip columnists (oddly, no photographs of the spitting" ever appeared).

"We were filming in a blocked street in Newtown," he explains. "Paparazzi invaded the set. One kept yelling at me to let him get a shot, and when I didn't respond, I got the paparazzi revenge treatment - he ran through the set, repeatedly firing his flash, ruining Neil's take. Then he flashed his car headlights on high beam, causing more chaos." The crew were furious, as was Armfield, who now says, "I wanted that photographer horsewhipped".
Ledger approached the photographer, who smirked at me and said: 'See ya at home, Heath.' "It chilled my spine. Michelle and I were renting in Bondi, and a photographer perpetually hid in the barbecue area, following us everywhere." Michelle, pregnant, "felt she must have had a dick growing out of her forehead - we were pursued like we were aliens."

They returned to America, and this January flew to Australia with Matilda to move into their completed Bronte house, and attended Brokeback Mountain's Sydney premiere.

It was a year since the supposed spitting incident, but three photographers created their own headlines by squirting Ledger and Williams with water pistols as they stepped onto the red carpet.
Tears fill Ledger's eyes: "That broke my heart. They obviously wanted me to punch and swear at them, looking a big bad idiot, but I was crushed. I had to introduce the film, but I could barely speak. I went straight home to Bronte, got into the bathroom and broke down."

Next morning, longing to take his surfboard and ride some waves, he found his house under siege from TV crews, reporters and photographers. "They kept ringing my doorbell, demanding I come out. One paparazzi was on my front step, with his daughter, holding a big bunch of roses and giving TV interviews, saying he wanted to apologise to Michelle, but that they had to teach me a lesson, I needed to be brought down a peg.

"We were like prisoners in our own house; our own goldfish bowl, it turned out. I'd installed dark reflective glass on the balconies and windows, but they had special lenses to shoot pictures of us through the glass."

"I felt so stressed and disheartened. I wanted Michelle to love Australia, but we couldn't live like that. It never let up, so after 10 days we packed our bags, flew to America, and I put the house on the market."

Ledger adds: "Russell and Nicole have told me that when you first get successful, Australians love you and put you up there, then for 10 years they beat you down; then you're fine again and they leave you alone. So you just have to get through those first 10 years..." "Russell has been really nice to me, does the big brother, fist-on-the-chin thing. He says, 'You gotta stop doing finger signs at the paparazzi, because it rubs off bad on you.' I say 'I know, but my instinctive reaction is to at least make a gesture.'

"That spitting saga was so disgusting. If someone spat at me, I'd probably hit them in the face. But the more I deny it and defend myself, the more people believe I'm somehow guilty. I hated being made to feel guilty, needing to prove that I was innocent. I felt so distressed when my mother and my sister Kate rang me - in tears over reports of my alleged bad behaviour."

His face darkens: "Some paparazzi chant at me 'Can't you take it Heath? You shouldn't be in showbiz if you can't take being followed and photographed. You need us Heath.' No I freakin don't!"

A newly gentrified neighbourhood in Brooklyn, across the river from Manhattan, has become his sanctuary. Its quiet streets have solid, four-storey, linked houses, small gourmet shops and cafes, parents walking babies in prams, dogs on leads - and no paparazzi. "They have much bigger fish to fry than me over here." Ledger grins. He still wants to come to Australia, find a place on the coast with some land - but he's not ready, just yet.

SALLY LEDGER (Now BELL) romantically named her son Heath after her favourite literary character. He grew up a lively, happy, affectionate child, with a big imagination and boundless curiosity. His father Kim, a racing-car engineer and businessman, was keen on sport, in which Heath excelled at school, along with art, his best subject.

At 13, he started acting in school plays, Peter Pan, Hamlet. Conscious of his fidgeting hands and feet, he learned modern dance "to gain more control over my body" and proved a natural, directing and choreographing his school's Rock Eisteddfod entry. "I got 80 farmboys who'd never danced before up on stage, and we won," he says proudly.

Elder sister Kate was involved in acting, and at 14 he accompanied her to her agent, landing a part in a TV series, Ship to Shore. "I was terrible," he, confesses, "but I figured if I see what I was doing wrong, then I could also fix it. I was into self-improvement early."

More TV roles followed and at 16 he left school, left home and moved east to film teen idol roles in the films Blackrock, Roar and Paws. His parents had divorced when he was 11, and he'd been living between both parents' houses, turn about. "That set me off on a gypsy life, excellent training to live out of a bag. You grow up emotionally quicker than other kids, you get more flexible and independent. I spent a lot of time studying my parents - it's a shortcut to understanding yourself. I gained an early understanding that all human beings are flawed, and it's okay to be flawed, that it's even more interesting."

He stays close to his extended family, so close that their combined initials, KAOS, are tattooed on his wrist. (Ashleigh and Olivia are his half-sisters.)
After school, drama institute was discussed, "but I feared four years in acting academy would spit me out like a Toyota model with a set of rules, when I felt acting was about defying rules", he says. Besides, he bores easily.

Ledger flew to Los Angeles, won the lead in another teen film, 10 Things I Hate About You, but, concerned with becoming chick-flick eye candy, looked for something more substantial. Columbia Pictures cast him as Mel Gibson's heroic son in The Patriot. "Mel was great to me, but it was the first time I'd worked with a big movie star and I felt really intimidated. I still hadn't figured out how to act properly; my early success wasn't based on acting."

But a crisis point was looming. Columbia starred him in A Knight's Tale, playing a commoner pretending he's a knight so he can enter jousting tournaments. "We filmed in Prague, but I didn't take it too seriously. I was 19, we drank and partied, I was often hungover, it was all a romp."
"Then, when we finished, my agent, Steve Alexander, says 'Columbia wants to discuss the promotion campaign'. I go, 'Eeehh?'

"We go to this huge boardroom table meeting with 15 people in suits, and huge posters of me captioned, 'He Will Rock You' and I'm freaking out.
"They outline their plan for the release...we're sending you around America, to 20 states, then 20 countries around the world ... and I got this two-hour spiel on how they were turning me into Columbia's new It boy."
"They offered me ridiculous amounts of money to make franchise movies, Spiderman to James Bond. Studios do this - find one person, invest a lot of money in him like a product, own and make money off him."

"At the end it was, 'So kid, whaddya think?' I couldn't speak. I left the boardroom, found a bathroom, shut the door, and just started crying. After a while, Steve comes in and calls slowly; 'Heeeath.' I tell Steve I can't do it, I don't want my life to be in their hands, I'm not ready to be seen on such a grand scale, I can't act well enough yet. I don't want a career handed to me on a platter, it's too easy, it wouldn't be mine because I haven't earned it. It feels wrong."

"The s**t hit the fan. I had Amy Pascal, head of Columbia Pictures, on the phone to me ... 'Listen kid, hear this, your career will be over, you'll never work again, youll never live again unless you do this for me.'

"I dig Amy now, we've been through a lot of battles and she's cool, but that time was so heavy."

"In the end I agreed to do part of the promotion tour only - providing they flew my family and Perth friends to America for two weeks."
"How many friends? Fourteen! They did it."

IT'S LATE AND LEDGER OFFERS TO DRIVE ME back to my hotel. I should report that I've seen no glimmer of the rude, bored-brat celebrity image. Rather - paparazzi finger signs apart - he seems well mannered and considerate, his head well screwed on.

In the car, I ask how it felt as an ambitious 17-year-old actor getting started in Hollywood? Did much of it seem like a load of bullshit?
He laughs. "It still often feels like a whole load of bullshit, and just acknowledging that puts me at ease. When I first worked in the industry, it seemed so unbelievably foreign and surreal. The differences between good and bad people were so extreme. The way some people treated others, or held themselves so falsely high, disgusted me, and I promised myself I'd never become like that."

He doesn't deny that he might have taken advantage of his "It boy" status, but adds he soon discovered he "was the one being used, rather than the other way around".

It took him a while to learn how to handle the fame phenomenon and it's demands, to become more comfortable and diplomatic with it. "One of the best things I ever did was fly my Perth mates over. Most of us have been friends since kindergarten, but I hadn't seen them for a few years, and a separation was happening. They were beginning to think of me as the manufactured celebrity Heath, with a level of intimidation."

"They all stayed in my house. I showed them the madness of my new world, how I kept sane through the junketing, I wasn't this screaming demanding diva. They started relaxing and teasing me again, I teased them, we had a ball, and we're all now very secure friends."

I HALF EXPECT LEDGER TO CANCEL THE NEXT days interview, busy as he is, but he doesn't. I go with him on his errands around Brooklyn - to the friendly cheese shop, discussing his favourite pasta recipes as he makes a selection; around the corner to the wine merchant, catching up on local news while stocking his pantry for his house guests while he's away in Hollywood.

Williams and baby are rugging up for a walk, and we discuss Australian paintings and photography; she's keen to collect. Ledger said he started to fall in love with her when they fell off the toboggan in Brokeback; she hurt her leg, he went in the ambulance with her to hospital, she spent the rest of the film on crutches, and he looked after her. "Michelle was coming through a difficult phase. She had no idea how beautiful she is, how talented. Her gaze was downcast, like Ennis's. She's been acting professionally since she was eight, and going to auditions - and never being sure why you're rejected or accepted makes you insecure and vulnerable. "

Sounds like the knight to the rescue? "Oh no, she rescued me as much as I rescued her," Ledger says. "Michelle has strengths where I have weaknesses, and she gave me a real life. I love how her posture has changed, her gaze now is up."

In the kitchen, as Ledger slices sourdough bread, I ask where he'd be now if he'd said yes to Columbia's proposal. "Probably in drug rehab, or living a layabout life in Miami," he replies. "I knew I was being offered a deal with the devil. I didn't trust it, it felt short-term, they weren't going to take responsibility for me if I fried. I also felt professionally cheapened - like, 'Is that all they think I'm capable of."

It triggered a turning point, and he deliberately set out to nail riskier, non-typical Ledger roles that extended his acting ability.
A pensive bushranger in Ned Kelly, an alcoholic skater dude in Lords of Dogtown, a bumbling conman in The Brothers Grimm followed. None were large commercial successes, but he knew he was maturing as a person and actor.

Ned Kelly director Gregor Jordan says: "Heath made this ballsy choice that he wanted to be an actor, not a star. He'd rather be Sean Penn or Johnny Depp, not Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. It could have backfired badly, because so many people were waiting to say,'Omigod, look at the roles he's trying to do when he couldn't pull them off."

"But Heath did, and I'm proud of him. I've known him since I directed him in Two Hands at 18, and Heath's always had an old soul."
A small, powerful role Ledger played as the disturbed suicidal son in Monster's Ball proved a fortuitous choice. Novelist Larry McMurtry, Brokeback's scriptwriter, saw it and instantly decided: "That's Ennis.' Luke Davies, who co-wrote the script of Candy, immediately reacted: "That's Dan."

THERE ARE A HANDFUL OF DIRECTORS ACTORS will work for without even reading the script. One is Ang Lee - but Brokeback Mountain's script, too, says Ledger, was the closest to perfect he'd seen. "I hadn't met Ang before I got the role," Ledger says, "and I feel I only really met him when we finished filming. We were at the Venice Film Festival. Ang was asked a question and we were waiting for the one-word answers he always gave us, and suddenly this outpouring came. Jake and I looked at each other amazed - like, 'Ang speaks English really well! He can really talk!'"

"Ang has a superb understanding of the intimacy and internal nature of film acting. His attention to detail is microscopic in pre-production ... think about the way you walk, talk. Then go away, digest it all, spit out a character of your own. Turn up to film, and Ang barely says a word the entire shoot."
"He trusts you to have given birth to the instincts, brain and breath of the character, and instead of directing you, he directs the environment around you to make it believable."

On set, they felt Lee's manipulation. "He created a lonely environment for us, so it bled into our performances. He'd never patronise us with praise, never even say 'Good shot.' He'd just sigh and walk off for the day."
"Early one morning, I was doing a scene, it was extremely cold, my voice was croaky, I hadn't done my voice warm-ups which I usually do religiously. I felt like my lips were frozen and I wasn't speaking properly, which is fine for Ennis because his mouth doesn't move, but I was feeling paranoid afterwards."

"I ran up to Ang and asked. 'Did it sound okay?' I was desperate for some nod of approval. Ang shuffled his feet, just said, 'Light was good'. and walked away."

"I'd go back to my trailer every night torturing myself, feeling like a failure. But I'd wake-up the next morning wanting to defeat him and do better. Then you understand it's directorial manipulation to achieve what the film needs - and you go with it."

Ledger recalls the day the 0scar nominations were announced and Lee phoning, crying, 'I love you!' "Michelle and I were amazed. Ang had never shown the slightest interest in us as people, only as actors. But from then on, he's become involved in our lives."

How did Ledger evolve the complex character that is Ennis? "I like the physicality of characters, and strive to bodily represent their story. Ennis's walk and speech come from pacing around a hotel room for a month, experimenting. "I wanted his speech pattern to represent his inability to express love, and to be loved. His mouth became a clenched fist, because his only form of expression is violence."

Does he use mirrors? "Never. You don't learn how to act looking in mirrors, you can tell actors who've done that. It's dangerous, because acting is not about what your face is doing. If you act face first then you've worked out your face, but not the true thoughts inside. I work from inside out thoughts and emotions first, and then the face follows."

Though Brokeback Mountain was hailed as a gay film, Ledger says, "There's only about 5 per cent gay sex in it. The love scene inside the tent was the most difficult to act. It's darkly lit in the movie, and I wish it was like that when we shot it, which would have made things a whole lot easier. Instead, they blew up the tent with light, so they could selectively grade in shadows later." Ledger says he didn't directly discuss the role with gay friends while researching Ennis, "because it was so clear in the script the anxieties he was battling."

Making Candy, however, he and Abbie Cornish did spend time with heroin addicts, learned how to tie tourniquets, flick syringes, inject, then show reactions on their faces and bodies. It is the first film in seven years that Ledger has made using an Australian accent. "It was so liberating to be able to mumble, breathe and improvise in my own accent," he professes.

In Candy, Ledger plays Dan, a disarmingly charming some-time poet and junkie, well-intentioned but inept, as "heroin is the puppeteer of his life". He passively condones Candy, his wilful artist lover, joining his heroin habit, and they drift in a sea of love and tandem addiction.

Geoffrey Rush is Casper, an elegantly decaying junkie professor/mentor to the pair. He tells Candy: "When you can stop, you don't want to; when you want to, you can't."

Their addiction slides into living hell, she works as a prostitute to buy drugs, there's a horrendous miscarriage scene (which spooked Ledger, as Williams was just pregnant), then the pair make life-altering decisions and struggle towards redemption.

There was some interesting creative tension on the shoot. Armfield, an esteemed theatre producer, loves to rehearse scenes to perfection before he films a take. "Abbie and I don't want to capture our performance in rehearsal," explains Ledger. "We're superstitious and nervous about it because we're not sure we can repeat it in the shoot. But Neil backed down and let us work in our own patterns."

Armfield chuckles that it became "a them and us scenario on the shoot. Heath and Abbie, the naughty kids on set, disappearing to the pub for several drinks before they had to film any 'high' scenes. I understood they needed to do this."

He admits he was amazed at Ledger's astute sense of his own physicality, and knowledge of the camera from both sides of the lens. "I often thought Heath was under-acting. I couldn't see with my naked eye what he was doing, but on the big screen, he was right, perfect.

"And I often thought he was speaking too softly, but again, he was right. He also wanted to cut a lot of the dialogue out. I insisted on filming it anyway, then I have to say he was 90 per cent right there too, because I cut the dialogue in the edit."

WHAT DOES LEDGER GET OUT OF ACTING? "It's escapism, an extension of my curiosity. I love the striving, the process of being part of something bigger than me, because it forces me to examine myself and my own life."
It's a strange thing humans do, acting? "Yes it is," he laughs. "But that's a thought I cannot have in the middle of a scene. The second I realise what I'm really doing - I'm a glorified monkey dressed up in an outfit - it's like, 'What are you doing, -- Heath? Oh, go home."

His arms fling up, shirtsleeves slip back, and the tattoos on both arms are clearly visible. Is he planning to add M&M to his KAOS tattoo?. "I'm still thinking about where to put them," he replies. They want more children, so some design strategy is required. "Very early in our relationship, we talked about having babies together. I always knew I'd be a young father."

On the other arm are the words "Old Man River". Michelle wrote it there, and he had it tattooed on.

What does it mean? "lt's kinda private," he blushes, then adds, " . . . there is a place called Old Man River." One senses it's more a metaphorical meaning; perhaps the longevity his old soul yearns for as an actor, to just keep rolling along.

Exclusive Interview: Heath Ledger
"Candy" & "The Dark Knight"
Posted: Monday, September 11th 2006 11:36AM
Author: Paul Fischer
Location: Toronto, ON

Heath Ledger arrives in Toronto for the North American premiere of his Australian film, Candy, without an entourage. There's no publicist and no fanfare. "When I'm not working I don't need a publicist", Ledger says, as we sit in the quiet corner of a Toronto hotel restaurant. Here for just a day, he already misses wife Michelle Williams and daughter Matilda. ". Matilda is just awesome and being a father has also helped me become even more selective now with work because for me, to go away from home for a day, let alone five, is tough," says Heath, with a wistful smile. Ledger, though, was more than happy to leave Montreal where Michelle is shooting Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan film I'm Not There, in which he also appears, to talk about Candy.

In another unforgettable performance, the now Oscar nominee plays a self-destructive heroin addict, also ferociously in love with the beautiful Candy. The actor, who hasn't made a film in his native Australia since Ned Kelly or with is own accent since 1999's Two Hands, says it was a release to go back to Australia and work there. "I mean I'm constantly looking for material back there for that reason and it was so liberating to talk without an accent. But I also love to tell Australian stories and they're just so very few of them back there right now, because any half decent or half talented writer, actor or cinematographer just gets ripped up and taken out of there, so the pickings are slim." Ledger was happy to get paid far less than usual to take on another challenging role. "I really loved working on it, I was so comfortable and relaxed and I was working with wonderful people like Abbie. Cornish."

Ledger and Cornish both took the job of research very seriously, almost too seriously it seems. :"We grabbed a video camera and went down to this place in Sydney called NUA, which is the Narcotics Users Association. There we met this gentleman who has been and still is a junkie for something like 25 years. So he took us into this little room, pulled out what looked like a rifle case, opened it up and there was a prosthetic arm in it - like a really lifelike arm, and at the end, on the shoulder, there are two tubes that have blood bags and you put fake blood into them and they're fully functional veins in the arm that you can inject into and pull out blood. I mean they're designed to teach nurses and stuff like that how to find veins, but they have one here to teach kids how to inject safely. And so he was like, oh, look at that vein, that's a good one, ooh, ooh, and he was salivating at the mouth, and he was like let's get one here, so there was that," he recalls, laughingly. We filmed it and so I gave the DVD to Geoffrey Rush, one to the Art Department and one to Neil, just as reference."

The film, Candy, which is being released in the United States by ThinkFilm later this year, was loosely based on the real life experiences of addict Luke Davies "who was on set all the time and was there to say things that we wouldn't know - like when you're stoned high on heroine, your eyes aren't like that but your eyebrows are up." But the actor concedes he could have survived without too much of the research. After all, he says laughingly, "I feel that I've read a million books and articles and have seen a million movies and TV shows on heroine and heroine addiction, I just feel like we all kind of have seen it."

Since the first time we met, on the set of Two Hands in Australia, Ledger has evolved into one of Hollywood's true A-list stars. Last year, he joined that elite group of Oscar nominees for his sensitive and much acclaimed performance in Brokeback Mountain. Looking back, the actor is genuinely surprised that the film took off like it did. "I was definitely surprised and my expectations for the film were really down here," he says laughingly, moving his hands towards the floor. "I was really pleasantly surprised and so grateful to have been given that opportunity and really proud of it but I'm really happy it's all over too, because it was really exhausting," Ledger says, recalling the awards season and the lead up to the Oscars. But he also admits almost shyly, that his nomination has opened up even more doors. "I think there's a new level of interest kind of thing but I haven't really acted on it, since the only thing I've really done since is this Todd Haynes film and The Joker."

It is his decision to play The Joker in the new Batman film The Dark Knight that has caused much interest in the industry. He says that ordinarily doing something like that would not be of interest to him. "I actually hate comic book movies, like fucking hate them, they just bore me shitless and they're just dumb. But I thought what Chris Nolan did with Batman was actually really good, really well directed, and Christian Bale was really great in it."

Ledger says he's looking forward to playing a truly evil character. "He's going to be really sinister and it's going to be less about his laugh and his pranks and more about just him being a just a fucking sinister guy." Asked if he decides to do a big movie like this, because of agent pressure, Ledger pauses then laughs. "I'm sure they're super happy that I'm doing this, because this is the first time I've really kind of taken something like that, so they're over the moon. But I think it's just going to be a really fun experience, and I love to dress up and wear a mask." No costumes have been designed, but the actor says that "I've seen a few interesting designs on the look and I think that it's going to look pretty cool."

Who would have thought that when young Heath decided to move to Los Angeles at age 17, he would ultimately end up as a gay cowboy and Batman's nemesis in a matter of a year or so? But life turned out differently than even he could have imagined. After all, we both moved to LA for the same reason, as I discovered during this conversation: For love. "I also moved to LA to follow a girl," he recalls laughingly. "I did Roar, was dating a girl in the TV show, she went back to LA and I had to go with her. I stayed there and lived with for her for two years." Then he landed his first major film role - back in Australia- Two Hands. The rest, as they, is history. Now Ledger says he's at his happiest, both professionally and personally. "When you're this happy everything seems to fall into place."

In his own voice
Longing to use his own accent for a change, Heath Ledger opts for role in small Australian film

Published: Monday, September 11, 2006
Heath Ledger -- Academy Award nominee, cinematic heartthrob, rising Hollywood star -- makes a series of big films, becomes one of the hottest actors in the business, and then follows it up by returning to his native Australia to make Candy, a small, independent movie about a heroin addict.

Why?

So he can talk in his own voice.

"I'm constantly looking for material in Australia because I thoroughly enjoy being free of the restraints of accents," Ledger says. "It's a novel thing for me too. It's been eight years since I've used my own accent."

Ledger's recent roles ranged from the Italian lover in Casanova to the gay cowboy Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain whose tight-lipped cri de coeur, "I wish I could quit you," has become the most famous movie phrase of last year. But when he speaks in his own Australian accent, he says, "You're not afraid to be heard breathing. When you're doing an accent, if you have to laugh, nine times out of 10 you'll laugh and you'll lose your accent."

Not having to think about it freed Ledger to improvise a bit in his role as Dan, a poet addicted to heroin who drags his girlfriend (Aussie actress Abbie Cornish) into the devastating world of drug addiction that Ledger acknowledges has been shown many times in movies and TV shows.

He took the role because it was an Australian movie, even though he's part of a love-hate relationship with the public in his native country. During his promotions for Brokeback Mountain, photographers accused him of spitting on them and retaliated by squirting him with a water pistol. He says there's a "tall poppy" syndrome in Australia: the public loves the rising star, and then begins to resent the star who has arrived.

"They love to chop you down and kind of stomp on you and bring you back to earth, which is really frustrating because my feet have been so firmly planted on the ground my whole life that it's frustrating to go back and feel like you're guilty until proven innocent every time. It's really tiring."

Ledger says the attitude is the reason he sold his house in Australia; he now lives with his fiancee, actress Michelle Williams, and their daughter Matilda, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Following a movie about gay romance with a movie about druggy love -- the producers call Candy a romantic triangle involving a hero, a heroine and heroin -- doesn't worry Ledger, who says the only time he thinks about any perceived "controversy" in his choice of movies is when he's asked about it in interviews.

"I had no desperate secret desire to play a junkie," he said during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Candy had its premiere screening Friday. "It was just something I haven't done."

Ledger researched the role by visiting a narcotics user's association in Australia, where a drug addict showed him a prosthetic arm and explained how to inject needles into a vein. "He actually shot up drugs later, and he did it through his knuckle, because all the veins in his arm, all the veins in his leg, all the veins in his neck had gone. It was just excruciating watching him."

The actor -- lounging on a chair in a Toronto hotel room dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt printed with an unidentified profile that looks, in his words, like the Queen Mother -- added, "And I've smoked a joint before, so I know what it's like to be high."

Ledger also knows what it's like to be on a career high. His Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain was itself a breakthrough of sorts, and he dismisses any suggestion that it was risky for an actor to play a gay character.

"If anything, it's like finally people understand where I want to take my career. ... On right angles constantly. I want to change it up. I don't want to be consistent."

If his filmography is all over the place, he says, it's because he himself is all over the place. "I'd shoot myself if I was in a television show for five years," he says, then laughs at his own overstatement.

"Well, it's not that dramatic. But I'd get stale."

His upcoming roles take care of that problem. After the red-carpet appearance at the Candy screening, he returns to Montreal where he is filming I'm Not There, a portrait of Bob Dylan in which several actors play aspects of the singer's personality. And he's signed up to play The Joker on The Dark Knight, the next episode of the Batman series with Christian Bale as the comic-book hero.

After the interview, though, he had plans probably typical of any 27-year-old with a night to kill at the Toronto festival. He was going to go to the midnight screening of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen's hot-buzz comedy. "I love that guy," Ledger says. "He's so funny."

Don't expect late-night partying from new dad Ledger at Toronto film fest

TORONTO (CP) - Heath Ledger is relaxed and sprawled in an armchair in a downtown hotel suite when, out the window, he spies someone in a neighbouring building staring back at him.

"The weirdest guy has been sitting up in that window looking at me," Ledger says with a giggle. "How weird."
Ledger, in town for the Toronto International Film Festival, seems genuinely surprised by the fact that he is now both an object of fascination to the movie-going public and a full-fledged film star, despite his Oscar-nominated performance in the groundbreaking "Brokeback Mountain" last year.

There's not a thread of Armani upon his tattooed and toned physique. His hair is shaggy and unkempt. His black jeans and running shoes are well-worn. He's soft-spoken, polite and friendly, but deadly serious as he discusses the media frenzy surrounding stars like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and their new babies.

"We've tried to cater our lives and our professional lives towards not getting to that place," says Ledger, who plays a heroin addict in the harrowing Australian film, "Candy", premiering at the festival.

The 27-year-old actor, himself a new father to baby Matilda, lives with American actress Michelle Williams in a modest neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, where they do their own grocery shopping, have their neighbours over for dinner and are competing in a "greenest block in Brooklyn" contest.

"I don't need to own a skyscraper and I don't need to fly my own jet," the Aussie actor says. "I don't need all those things so therefore I don't need to get myself in that position, trapped within my own empire. And it is a choice. You choose to get there."

Even though Ledger is taking on the role of the Joker in the upcoming Batman flick "The Dark Knight," he says he doesn't get approached for the lead parts in big action movies because he's turned the studios down too many times.

"I would have fun making them, I just wouldn't want anyone to see them," he says with a broad smile. "If I could work out a deal like that where I could make the movies, run around, jump off things, shoot guns - OK, that would be fun. They're kind of mindless and you don't really have to try and you just say one line in each scene in your own way."

But Ledger says he's more interested in finding roles that require more work, both intellectually and professionally.

"It's kind of like comparing watching television and reading a book. Watching TV just makes you go kind of numb, and reading a book you grow, you expand. I like to look for roles that are like books, that I have to study and expand upon."

He certainly hasn't missed the mark with "Candy," based on the book by Australian novelist Luke Davies. Ledger portrays a romantic poet named Dan who falls in love with the beautiful Candy, newcomer Abbie Cornish in an astonishing performance. Ledger masterfully turns a ferocious heroin addict - one who introduces his middle-class, somewhat white-bread girlfriend to hard-core drugs as well - into a sympathetic and ultimately selfless character by the film's end.

"I had no real desire to play a junkie," he says. "But love is very important in my life and it's something I am always interested to find within a story. But I like it to be smuggled or disguised in other backdrops."

And, not surprisingly for the star of "Brokeback Mountain," dubbed the gay cowboy movie, he adds with a laugh: "I don't really like conventional love stories. Can you tell?"

Ledger is currently working on the Todd Hayne biopic on Bob Dylan, "I'm Not There," in Montreal. Ledger plays Dylan during one period of his life; Williams also has a part in the film.

It's the second movie he's made in Canada, and Ledger couldn't be happier to be back filming here after his "Brokeback" experience in Alberta.

"I absolutely love it. I love the people, I love everything about it here. I don't know what it is about Australians and Canadians getting along so well but they do," he says. "It seems like there's the same sense of humour, very dry, and just a very modest society."

Nonetheless, Ledger says he's anxious to get back to his simple and peaceful life in Brooklyn, raising his daughter - and don't look to him to be pulling all-nighters on the film festival's famous non-stop party circuit.

"I'm up at 5:30 or 6 every morning, and in bed at 9," he says. "But it's fine, and the one thing I realize is that before Matilda, we were just sleeping in too long. We were missing out on so much of the day. I get much more done now; I feel more focused. And I actually need to go to bed at 9 now - I feel it in my bones."

Mr. Brownstone: Heath Ledger

Brooklyn’s most famous father has finally come down from Brokeback Mountain to deliver an itchy, sweaty, sexy turn as a heroin-addicted poet who falls in love with an innocent young beauty (Abbie Cornish) in the Australian indie Candy. Logan Hill spoke with Ledger about drugs, Dylan, and the press.

Have you ever done heroin?
No. And I didn’t consider doing it for the movie. It has been so romanticized through music, literature, and movies, I kind of feel like anybody on the street could portray a junkie. But I’ve smoked a joint before, so I know what it’s like to be high. I’m addicted to tobacco, so I know what an addiction is—you just amplify it.

What makes Candy different from the other drug movies?
I know we’ve seen heroin a million times in movies … but I’d read the novel and liked it. But mainly for me, it was the opportunity to work in Australia and to speak with an Australian accent again.

Your co-star Abbie Cornish is breaking out.
She’s the real deal. She’s explosive as an actress, just explosive within each scene.

She’s also been in the tabloids of late. Have you given her any advice on how to handle that?
No.

Are things better, paparazzi-wise, in Brooklyn?
Absolutely. We probably get two lone photographers who wander out to Brooklyn maybe twice a year. It’s the closest we’ve ever come to feeling like we can lead a normal life, so we really value it. We know everyone on our block. We’ve localized ourselves. I don’t think there’s another place on earth I’d rather be right now. We’re very happy.

You’ve been active in protesting Ratner’s plans.
Michelle’s kind of the front-runner for that cause, but I think we’ll participate in some fund-raising.

Now that you have a child, do you plan to trade off films?
We do like to have one work on, one work off. It’s the only way to really manage a relationship in this business. We don’t want to just dump her with a nanny.

You were recently away shooting Todd Haynes’s Dylan movie. What part of Dylan’s vibe do you play?
It has to do with his family, the divorce—it was a quite chauvinistic time for him. I actually play an actor who plays Dylan in a movie, so the Dylan he’s playing in the film is actually played by Christian [Bale].

I think I understand.
It’s wild. The footage I saw was just beautiful.

Very Happy

But I’ve smoked a joint before, so I know what it’s like to be high.
No proszę... Wink