Today’s Brokeback Mountain coverage comes in the form of an MSN interview with Heath Ledger and Matt Damon from the Brothers Grimm junket. Heath had this to say about the making of the film:
“The idea I had to make out with Jake … just wasn’t the easiest thing to do. It is a beautiful story, a beautiful script. It was definitely a real sense of accomplishment once I finished. I had so much fear for the project and the story and, you know, had to be brave. I definitely came out thinking, ‘[Expletive], I can do anything,’ you know?”
Maybe it was the stubble that was scaring him. Then, of course, comes the inevitable question about the sex:
“I mean, look, there’s enough. You’ll be pleased I think. We’re not dry humping each other in every scene. It’s a beautiful love story, it really is, and we’ve definitely pushed the envelope.”
Two decades go by in the movie. Heath lets us in on some of his aging techniques:
“I had to do some things I’ve never done before … like the aging process. There’s not a lot of [physical] change between the age of 18 and 40, really. So, I staged my accent in pitches, so it was higher when I was younger and deeper when I was older and I tried to make it subtle.”
Then Matt Damon wields his A-list baton that Heath got his sloppy seconds:
“That’s a beautiful script, I read it years ago. In fact, I was gonna do it. Gus Van Sant read it and wanted to do it after ‘Good Will Hunting.’ I read it and loved it. But, I was going off to do ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ and then ‘All the Pretty Horses.’ So I said, ‘Gus, I’m going to do a movie about, quite frankly, a guy who’s gay, and then I’m going to do a movie about a cowboy. I shouldn’t then just do a gay cowboy movie.”
