| Heath Ledger Gets a Taste of Homegrown Candy |
| Written by Brad Balfour | ||||
| Tuesday, 05 December 2006 09:57 | ||||
Page 1 of 2
Though Oscar-nominated actor Heath Ledger can be fairly tight-lipped when he wants to be (enough prodding and pride about his work can get him talking), it never becomes quite a gabfest. One thing is for sure, ever since the Australian-born, sometime heartthrob met and got involved with actress Michelle Williams and subsequently moved to Brooklyn, he's put aside the quest to be this year's hunk.
Instead he's willing to do increasingly edgy and career-challenging work like he did as a closeted gay in "Brokeback Mountain," and as he has done in the Australian production of "Candy"--where he plays the heroin-afflicted poet wannabe Dan who transforms his young love Candy (Abbie Cornish) from art student to fellow junkie. For Ledger, the reason why he explored the addict's world was simple--it was from a well-respected book and he wanted to do film in his native country--a place where he hadn't worked in nearly a decade. 
Heath Ledger
Ledger as Dan and Abbie Cornish as Candy get it on in the pool
Ledger with wife Michelle Williams at the 2006 BAFTA Awards in London
 
Looking a little strung out in "Candy"...
Ledger cleaned up for the Oscars. He was nominated for Best Actor for "Brokeback"
Q: Does making a film about drugs glorify them? HL: I can't honestly say that it was a concern of mine. I guess because I knew the context within the script, I knew it wasn't really glorifying it. [At least] I was hoping. So I think it ended up being a bit of a cautionary tale above anything. Q: What made you want to do this character? HL: Well, to be honest, it was just the opportunity to work at home again. The scripts in Australia are slim pickings these days and it was the best one available. It had been eight years since I've used my own accent in a movie and I was curious as to see what that would be like. Q: What sort of research did you do? HL: Well, physically I stayed out of the sun and I tried to eat less. But for all the technical aspects of it, Abby and I went to this center in Sydney called NUAOA, which is the Narcotics Users Association Of Australia. And we met a gentleman who has been using, and still is I think, over the past 20 years or something and he took us into a boardroom and he opened up what looked like a rifle case and inside was a prosthetic arm, which was designed to train nurses and within this center was designed to train young drug addicts how to find a vein and it was a fully functional kind of thing. Inside, the veins are fully functional and the two tubes that you can attach like veins have blood bags, and we pumped blood through the arm and you could find a vein. The nurse showed us how to do that, and you could even pump blood out of the arm and put the drugs through and then he showed us how to tie the tourniquets and there's that. And then the rest, like for example the drying out sequence, we just had someone on set who could take us through the stages step by step from experience. Now you're in a cold sweat and in this next scene your stomach feels like it's just twisting up into a knot, your headaches, you're botched, they just kind of spelt it out for us. And we just responded to his knowledge of it. Yeah, so, that, I guess. Q: Did it take you awhile to get over playing this role? HL: No. Not really. I saved living through the part for during that time between "action" and "cut." I'm pretty good at just dropping it once it's over. And certainly once the filming is done, I'm very excited to get back to my own [self]. So yeah, I generally don't find that too difficult. Q: What do you think about celebrities becoming addicts? HL: I don't know... It's obviously not just celebrities in rehab, it's probably a similar statistic to just people outside of the industry. But I do think that drugs and alcohol have been glorified and exoticized in such a way that it gets into the art world, whether it's just watching the way that Jackson Pollock paints with a bottle of booze in his hand and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, we've kind of connected that to what it takes to create something. When in fact it's anything but the truth. I mean obviously creation comes out of the mind and it's hard to create when you're in that state. But I'm sure drugs and alcohol perhaps would inspire new thoughts and, but, yeah I mean it's certainly not something that I use as a tool or a mechanism to create. Q: What do you think the reaction will be from addicts? HL: I don't know. I really don't. I'm sure they'll see it. But I don't really know the reaction what it will be. Q: What was your favorite scene to shoot or to watch afterwards? HL: Visually, I really like the stuff shot in the rotating camera motion. I didn't enjoy shooting that. It just made me want to vomit. It was a half a day kind of thing. I didn't like that very much. Didn't sit well with me. Q: Do you think this is more of a love story than a drug story? HL: I guess it's a love triangle. Them and the drug and I think they're just intertwined. We were all telling ourselves it was more of a love story than a story about heroin. Q: Have you ever done a love scene with someone uncomfortable to be with? HL: Well, I definitely have worked with people that I was uncomfortable with, but I didn't have to do love scenes with them. It's a funny thing. There's nothing attractive about the process when you're doing one of those things, even if the person you're doing it with is attractive, it's just a very unattractive thing to have to go through. But luckily enough, I've worked with a lot of good people. Q: Was that true in this film? HL: Would what be true? That it's a very unattractive process? Yes. Yeah. It is. It's very awkward, there's nothing organic about it whatsoever, there's grips and gaffers and boom operator and lights and focus people looking at your butt and it's just so awkward and clumsy and that's the biggest kind of, objective in scenes, to make it look like it's anything but that, it's so nerve-wracking, it's very uncomfortable. Q: How did you feel during the day feeling all these dark things? HL: I don't know--I guess we're lucky in the sense that we get to go there and we get to scream about it, so you get to purge yourself of it in a way. But it doesn't really affect me personally. Yeah. Q: What did you learn about users? HL: I mean, I'm not sure, but when I met this one man, the desperation of it and the need to want to be accepted kind of thing and feeling secluded from society, I learned about how they feel alienated by their illness and in learning that, that there's a genuine need for acceptance within society. When they're in the thick of it, they don't see an ending to it so they just want to be treated normally. So... maybe that. Q: Have you known anyone who has treated their partner like your character did? HL: None of my friends have prostituted their girlfriends. |
