Jake Gyllenhaal reveals what he loved about Heath Ledger in new interview

There were many people in the industry who were affected by Heath Ledger’s untimely death in 2008, including his then-still wife Michelle Williams and basically every actor who has ever dared to play The Joker since. But one actor who still recalls working with Ledger fondly is a co-star who has nothing to do with the Batman universe: Jake Gyllenhaal. In a new cover story with Another Man Magazine, Gyllenhaal opened up about doing press with Ledger leading up to the 2005 release of Brokeback Mountain, and what he loved about working with the late star: how seriously he took that role.According to Gyllenhaal, Ledger took the role so seriously that he even refused to present at the Oscars because organizers wanted the duo to do a bit that poked fun of the their characters’ relationship in the movie. “I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it,” he told the publication. “And Heath refused. I was sort of at the time, ‘Oh, okay... whatever.’ I’m always like: it’s all in good fun. And Heath said, ‘It’s not a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it.’”

 

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“I think I’ve hidden a lot” – @jakegyllenhaal is a changed man ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ “The idea of being a grown-up, of being a man was, at the time when we talked last, something I was searching for,” the actor tells Chris Heath in Another Man Issue 30. “I’ve spent many years trying to understand what that is. Like, movie after movie, life experience after life experience, going to certain extremes, to say, ‘Oh, is it in the physical world? Is a man who holds a gun...? Is a man who gets in a boxing ring...? Is a man who falls in love with another man?’ What is masculinity? And without knowing it, I think that’s what I was searching for.” Read the full interview at the link in our bio ?⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ? by @alasdairmclellan, styling by @elliegracecumming⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Another Man Issue 30 is available to download for free today ?⁠⠀

A post shared by Another Man Magazine (@another_man) on Apr 6, 2020 at 7:42am PDT

This isn’t the first time Gyllenhaal has spoken up about Ledger’s refusal to joke about what he saw as a real love story. "I see people who have joked with me or criticized me about lines I say in that movie," Gyllenhaal said in a 2019 interview with Sunday Today. "That's the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke. Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, 'No. This is about love. Like, that's it, man. Like, no.'“This little movie we made—it meant so much to us—has now become not ours anymore, it’s the world’s. That kind of attention, to be 26-years-old and at the Academy Awards, woah,” he added. “It opened tons of doors, it was amazing. It has defined my career in different ways.”In the Another Man interview, Gyllenhaal addressed that attention and admitted it was “absolutely” a smart move by Ledger not to participate in the gag, especially when the interviewer brought up how shockingly “homophobic” he found some of the banter during those junkets to be. For his part Gyllenhaal admitted he has never watched the movie after they finished filming it, even now, all these years later.“There are things you’re chosen for – a quality, an essence – and [director Ang Lee] did that. And it’s still a mystery to me. And something that Heath and I shared: that it was a mystery to us at the time…” he said. “The life experiences of them are so deep that no matter how powerful the movie is to many other people, or what it means to them, it means something completely different to me.”Brokeback Mountain follows the story of two sheep herders who fall passionately in love in the Wyoming mountains in the 1960s. When it debuted it was nominated for eight Oscars (including best performances by Ledger, Gyllenhaal, and supporting actress Michelle Williams), and it took home three statues including Best Achievement in Directing for Lee.Ledger would only ever go on to make five more movies before he died of a heart attack from an overdose of prescription drugs, including his most famous role as The Joker in The Dark Knight (which he happened to co-star in with Gyllenhaal’s sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal). When Ledger won the Oscar posthumously for that role in 2009, his parents and his sister accepted on his behalf.“This award tonight would have humbly validated Heath’s quiet determination to be truly accepted by you all here, his peers, within an industry he so loved,” his father Kim said at the time to a very sombre crowd. “We have been truly overwhelmed by the honour and respect being bestowed upon him with this award,” added his mother, Sally Bell. “Tonight we are choosing to celebrate and be happy for what he has achieved.”