>> Christine Spines: Michelle was saying how great it was
to live in those trailers on this.
>> Heath Ledger: Oh, yeah.
>> Christine Spines: That it was very romantic. >> Heath Ledger: It was really beautiful.
>> Heath Ledger: Yeah it was very romantic.
We were suddenly thrown into a little husband-wife situation.
Our bed, honestly, was no bigger than that little round table there.
My legs would hang off this far at the end.
But it was worth it. And it was comfortable, somehow.
>> Christine Spines: Yeah, you guys really were that couple.
>> Heath Ledger: (confirmation) Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was sweet.
It was very, very sweet. I could have stayed like that for years.
It was very, very, very sweet.
>> [MUSIC: The Raggedy Anns "Birds Are The Eyes/Anna Maria]
>> Christine Spines: You're fidgety.
>> Heath Ledger: Exactly. Fidgety. My nervous energy
is usually the easiest form of energy to tap into.
It's a pattern for me, going into any job carrying a certain level
of anxieties and doubt, self doubt, fears toward
my inabilities and not being able to... I fooled them, or I can't do this. I'm not
an actor. I shouldn't be here. I think everyone goes through that. I certainly
do, and I recognize it as a pattern. I recognize it as necessary because without
it I wouldn't try as hard to overcome it.
>> [MUSIC: YACHT, "Ring The Bell (instrumental)]
Heath Ledger: You have to be willing to be manipulated in the first place
because you can either recognize that in your director
and then fight it because you don't trust them,
but I'm not going to let you manipulate me.
Or you think they're on to something
and that they're manipulating something out of you which is interesting and new.
So you kind of go with it. There's as much self-manipulation as there is directorial.
I mean in terms of convincing yourself to believe the story and believe your characters.
To me, I believe acting truly is harnessing the power of belief.
I find just hanging out more useful than rehearsal time.
I really don't like to rehearse at all.
I think getting to know someone and gaining someone's trust,
the people you're working with around you,
is really important, particularly when you're putting yourself
in such vulnerable positions in the story.
People generally express more in between their sentences
when they're not speaking.
Words are usually there to disguise who someone is
or what they're feeling.
So sometimes words are too complicated and
they over-intellectualize moments --
>> Christine Spines: Well they're a crutch, that's what they are.
>> Heath Ledger: Yeah, and they're red herrings, too.
[MUSIC: Jahzzar "Fastest Man On Earth"]
>> Heath Ledger: If having true love and love that is expressive
and free outside of work affects a project where you have to be restrained
and in denial and fixed and closed off. This doesn't mean you go out and just destroy
your love outside of your life and kind of mirror your movie.
We're actors at the end of the day. I don't take it home with me.
My experience outside of work, I love... when I hear wrap, it's the most exciting part
of my day. I'm the first to have my make-up off,
in the car, out. I've gotta go home.
I want to get back to my life. I love it back there.
>> Christine Spines: Was Ang [Lee] in the mix, or --
>> Heath Ledger: Ang was our next door neighbor. I remember one morning waking up
and Michelle and I were making coffee and having a cigarette.
Going down to sit on the little stairs of our tiny little trailer.
And then our eyes kind of come to and start adjusting to this cold morning.
Ang is like sitting on a park bench in front of us.
You can kind of make out that he's holding something and you can hear this sound.
Then you realize he's sucking the eyeballs out of a fish.
And his son had caught rainbow trout in the river
and is eating the lips and eyes off of the face of the fishes at 5 o'clock in the morning.
>> Christine Spines: Ang is so fascinating! >> Heath Ledger: Yeah. But he's not alone.
There are hundreds of millions of people that do that.
I'm just not into eating fish face!
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