Heath was the most alive person that I've ever met
and it's very
puzzling to imagine him
not around. I still can't quite picture him not around somehow, because he was just so alive
and um all of the nonsense that I've read subsequently about darkness and
it's just… in no way meets the human being that I knew and fell in love
with. Everybody fell in love with Heath; he was preternaturally good at making you adore him.
There was like uh quite a you know it felt like a spiritual experience, a spiritual journey in a way
you know. We were gone to this uh absolutely isolated place in the middle of nowhere
(in Morocco) and trying to bring this film together. And there was like a number of
uh windstorms that were happening regularly - we were losing tents and people would get you know
getting hurt - and it was just a tough film to make.
The journey itself felt spiritual because we were just in the middle of nowhere and it was just us
and the film and so it was a really strange experience. It was uh wonderful to work with him
and he was just uh you know artistically he was so young and ripe… you were you could feel there was
so much talent in him, somebody who is obviously uh passionate about the work as well likes to have
fun; but who enjoys the work and takes the work very seriously. It was wonderful working with him.
I had equal difficulty finding the male lead because he needed to be masculine without
trying to be masculine; he needed to be smart; he needed to be removed;
he needed to be unbelievably charming. [Should I uh hear the lights?
Oh very clever kangaroo boy] A complicated role, a very complicated role and we had read
a ridiculous amount of guys. Heath came in and I remember very clearly - we were at Disney - and
I thought ‘wow this guy is special’. [Look no offence or anything but your sister's without.
You know I know everyone you know likes her and all, but between the two of you I mean she doesn't
compare.] There was no question in my mind when I met him and then we we read movie star movie star.
Andrew had us meet with him to hear his accent, to get the rhythm down in case we needed to
change any of the dialogue and uh so we were supposed to meet him for coffee or something and
you know eight o'clock at night and we ended up hanging out with him for about
seven eight hours! He was just this incredibly funny charming… he was 18 at the time and we
just we're just like we can't get enough of this kid! Like ‘tell us more, tell us more,
tell us another story from Perth! Like he was just magnetic. You know, he's not from around here;
and it's hard to control him. [You're not as vile as I thought you were]
You know he jumps with the kangaroos in Australia? Sweet kid, sweet didn't know much about the… he's
always jumping around and dancing like a fool. Heath just had something about him, you know,
movie stars have that thing; like there's some kind of weird magnet in them. When you would
talk to him you just wanted to be him! [Come on me lady!] I said to Heath ‘look I just want to tell
you to keep your head on your shoulders, because when this movie comes out your career is going
to explode.’ And he looked at me and he says ‘you know what Gil, that's all future. All I care about
is tomorrow and today, doing a good job for you. Whatever the future brings, let it bring.’
[You're in one of my favourite movies ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ (1999) and um I
know we just had a trailer for the ‘I Am Heath Ledger’ (2017)’ documentary come out. Do you
have a favourite memory from working with him on that movie?] Well a lot of great memories from
both working with him and even spending the year after we finished filming ‘10 Things’,
where both of us barely worked and we just hung out every day. So that's really the
memories that I cherish the most: is those times with Heath before he was famous.
It's way back in the memory banks but um yes I mean it was a such a wonderful time for all of us,
we were so young and like I think it was mostly all pretty much the whole cast it was like
our first big break and we just had so much fun together and everyone was open-hearted and
you know not jaded… and um uh it was really an exciting time yeah yeah. [The casting director
Marcia Cross said that out of everyone's chemistry you and Heath were just next level
um what was it like working with him specifically?] Such an amazing talent of course,
such an amazing talent and um so alive… like he just he lived life to the fullest
and every moment he was very present. I see now, I didn't realise it at the time but
he was such a gracious actor. So um the scene where I'm reading the poem and I start to cry - I
did not expect to cry - and we did it in like one or two takes; but when we were done and they were
gonna turn the camera around and get his coverage he was like… he didn't try and compete. He said
‘this is your scene and I'm just handing it over to you’, like he wasn't gonna… he wasn't gonna
start crying in the scene and he wasn't going to try and one-up me. It was very much like
I'm handing this over to you and I thought that was so mature of him. And he had amazing moments
of his own in the movie! Um dancing on the stadium stairs and all that so… uh… but it
just took a lot of selflessness and maturity to be like I don't need to upstage you.
Uh he was the only guy who ran out of an audition [oh what happened?] Well I auditioned him uh you
know like you normally audition people and all of a sudden in the middle of the edition he says ‘uh
I suck’ and ran out! [He said out loud ‘I suck’? Wow. What did he do? Did you call him? Did he…?]
I turned to April Webster, you know like uh casting director and said
‘April bring him back he was good: he was good. Kid was good.’
So she needed three weeks to talk him into coming back and when he came back he had blue hair
wow and then I luckily had like a hat you know one of these you know hats that they have in
this time; and then I put a track corner so we don't see the the blue hair and then he
kind of got through the thing and then um yeah and then he was you're just like the perfect
actor for this part. [Why do you think that he thought he sucked?] He was very insecure about
himself always; he always was not really happy with what he did but that's actually good for an
actor because if they're too confident they will never ever improve. We did like the death scene
of him first him and then uh we like ran out of light and then at one point
uh Mel (Gibson) did his and Mel was so good - I mean he was just good - and then
then he (Heath) comes to me ‘can I do my scene again?’ You know because he was
just so kind of thought… and also I mean you have to also understand you know my sister and I were
the only ones who really kind of believed that he can do it; and everybody else like Sony um
you know (producer Dean) Devlin, even Mel kind of thought… We tested two actors
and everybody wanted to hear the other actor. [Do you remember who it was?] No I cannot say that,
but it was somebody who's working - he was he he was the bigger name. [Okay] And
uh so I kind of like had to call Mel saying look I like the other guy better like he's better… and
then he says ‘well you're the director’ and hangs up on me! and I said to everybody ‘okay uh Mel
said yes and uh uh and he said I have the decision so let's do it’; and then I actually at that time
called immediately my uh my first AD (Assistant Director) and said ‘can we like schedule
his (Heath) and Mel’s scenes all in the first week so we know right away if this works?’ [Oh wow] and
then after three days Mel came to me and said uh ‘you were right I was wrong’. [What was it about
Heath that made you think it was somebody else..?] There was something noble about
him; there was something honest. This was not… you know there was some real honesty about him.
I cannot say it differently, but Ithink as an actor you cannot
play or act certain characteristics: you have to have them. And I think that was a little bit
you know why Heath became such a big actor: because there was something real about him,
you know what I mean? There was something about him which was just like genuine or genuine,
you know, like honourable. He was that person, but he was incredibly insecure.
My favourite character was definitely Casanova - how fun is it for a woman to write the world's
greatest lover? When we first started to look around for a Casanova we imagined
a seducer of the intellect and of the artistic bent in people, as well as a master of the
fine physical arts of lovemaking: sounds like Heath Ledger to me! [Lasse Hallström] Heath
Ledger has obviously the physical attributes to portray Casanova, but he's also a very smart actor
and is a guy that contributes on so many levels. He does all his own stunts - he wouldn't allow
stuntmen to get involved. [Sienna Miller] Heath and I have had a great time working together;
he's not only a fantastic actor but is absolutely fun to be with on set.
For me it's always about involving actors and making them understand that they're genuinely
needed on all levels [yes you're figuring it all out]. It's great and that's how I work. We did a
lot of improvising and especially with Heath Ledger I think he's a really good filmmaker
himself and he's got good ideas. I pick any brain I can get: any good idea I'll steal!
You know the relationship I think between me and
Heath while we were making this movie was something that was based on a profound love for
a lot of people that we knew and were raised by in our lives and a deep respect for
their love and their relationship. I mean one of the things I really remember
about the process after the movie came out was um Heath never wanting to make a joke,
even as I think culturally there were many jokes being made about the movie
or poking fun at and things like that; and his consummate devotion to how serious and important
the relationship between these two characters was, it showed me I think how devoted
he was as an actor and how devoted he was and we both were to the story in the movie.
And for us the experience of the movie I can say was a really deep and
fun one. We spent three weeks shooting um waking up in the morning, making everyone coffee and
then eating a little breakfast and walking to work… um it's a technique of movie making that I
wish we did more of you know, where we all just ‘powwowed’ and lived together in a space.
There's so much to say about this movie, there's even more for me to say about my experience of it,
there's even more for me to say about the reaction to it and what it meant and what happened. When
you realise as a performer in particular that something has nothing to do with you, that it is
a story has the power beyond anything that you think you have control over or part of:
the story is the power. And when it goes out into the world it becomes everyone else's…
and so you have a short time with it and that's my job and my honour to do, and then it is everyone
else's and it is no longer mine. And there is no film that I've ever done that has shown that to
me more than Brokeback Mountain. There is a moment that I go back to a lot: Heath and I were at a Q&A
at the Arrow Theatre in Los Angeles and I remember us going to dinner while the movie
was screaming and I remember us joking backstage and I remember kind of coming onto stage in a sort
of humorous mode you know because we were just having fun with each other. And we sat down,
the lights came up and a man stood up - and the movie had been out for a week and a half - and
he said ‘I just want to say this is my 11th time seeing this movie and I can't stop watching it
and I just want to thank you all for making it.’ And I thought 11 times in 10 days?
And we just… I remember that sort of again that thing washed over us… we're joking and we're you
know we're poking fun at each other before we go on and then the profound uh realisation of
the profundity of this thing washed over us. It happens constantly to this day and it's like it's
I can't really express how proud I am. [Thinking about your whole Brokeback Mountain thing with
Heath Ledger - what an actor this guy was. Did you get close to him afterwards like or do you do
Brokeback Mountain and say ‘you know yeah if I saw him I'll say hello’, but do you actually become
good friends after a movie like that yeah?] I mean there are a lot of times where your friends and
then your friends in a space and time and you're carrying that kind of like the residual space of
the work you did and the space and the life you had because it is your life and um yeah I mean
with Heath uh we we were friends from before that and then uh through it you know it like fortified
all of us somehow in a way that was just a crazy experience that was unlikely for all of us.
[What was making Brokeback Mountain like?] Well that was happy.
That was happy at work. [For a reason we both understand]
Yeah [You fell in love on that movie] I did, I did…
maybe that's the secret
[It's unforgettable] yeah for me too for me too, thankfully. I hope not to forget it.
[Do you understand why people are so curious about
your tragedy, the tragedy that happened to you?] Do I understand? Sure, yeah I do.
um
I'm sorry Oprah, something I hope you don't mind if I speak about this,
but there's something I feel very unsettled um at the moment and and
I suppose it's because uh I only just saw the news about Heath Ledger's death and um
it just seems… it seems somehow strange to be talking about anything else… uh… not that there's
anything to say really except to express one's regret and to say from the bottom of one's heart
to his family and to his friends that I'm sorry for their trouble. I didn't know him.
I have an impression, a strong impression, I would have liked him very much as a man if I had.
I'd already marvelled at some of his work and
had looked forward so much to seeing the work that he would do in the future, so…
um I was just driving and I was thinking about my friend Heath who died 10 years ago
and this song came on ‘Time to Pretend’ which came out after he had passed away and
I remember when it came out because I thought…
it made me think of him like uh like I just thought he would have liked this song, you know?
and for some reason Ijust
every time I hear this song I… and I was just
It's weird.