| Heath Ledger Gets a Taste of Homegrown Candy - Page 2 |
| Written by Brad Balfour | ||||
| Tuesday, 05 December 2006 09:57 | ||||
Page 2 of 2
Q: Do you like doing improvisation and is there any in this film? HL: Most of the scenes had drips and drabs of improv. Yeah I do, I guess I've never been exposed to a situation of just, okay, you guys meet each other in a park, you're from here, you're from there, okay, roll camera. I've never had something like that thrown at me, which I would probably feel a little uncomfortable with. But, I mean, if you have a complete understanding of your character and you know what he or she, what is their makeup, where they come from, then it makes it a lot easier.   
Above: Scenes from "Candy"
Q: Did you read the book beforehand or after or meet the author? HL: Yeah. I read the book beforehand a couple of times, it was a quick read and the author was on set every day. He wrote the screenplay and he had been through a similar experience and so he was really, he was the source of information I was talking about earlier, it was coming from him. Q: Are there other writers or directors you would like to work with? HL: Look, most of them are dead. Yeah. Fellini, sure. Cassavetes. But Bob Fosse and… Stanley Kubrick. They're all dead. No, there is. There's a long list of them, I should say. They're not lining up. I wish they were. Terence Malick. I'd really like to be in one of his visual poems. Q: What's your next project? HL: Well, the next thing I am playing is the Joker in the next "Batman." Q: Are you a fan of the Joker? HL: I guess if I was a fan of the comic book characters, it would probably be the Joker. Chris Nolan motivated me to take it, like the opportunity to play this guy. Somewhere inside I kind of knew instantly what to do with it, you know. I didn't feel like I had to search for it. I felt like I had a plan of attack already, so that usually dictates whether I want to do something or not. If I feel a connection to it. Q: Have you had any interaction with Chris Nolan since then? HL: At this point it's pretty much just Nolan. Chris Nolan is pretty busy or was busy with "The Prestige" and they're sort of still writing the script. Even with me, I don't have a script. I read it once at Chris Nolan's house, but he wouldn't let me leave with it. Q: Have you done any comedies since "10 Things I Hate About You?"  Would you like to?HL: Unintentionally, yes. I think I have. Kind of. I didn't really find them that funny, but yeah. Yeah. I do. I enjoy the physical aspect of comedy. I'd like to do a silent film that's a comedy perhaps. That's something I'd like to do. Q: Has having a family changed your career? HL: No. I didn't immediately get an edge to go out and be a voice in an animated film, but it you know definitely changes the person you are and I think your personal evolutions runs hand in hand to professional evolution, you know performance and the person you are kind of grow simultaneously. So I think it affects performance more than choice, perhaps. Q: What do you like about living in Brooklyn? HL: Everything. I adore it. I love the real sense of community and the neighbors and the coffee shop down the road and I, it's just, we really are left there to live and it's just, it feels like we're on an island when we're just next to one. Q: Can you walk around there? HL: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the thing, in New York City you're protected by numbers in a certain way. When you're walking in the streets, no one's looking at all the people passing, so, and particularly in Brooklyn. People are really just trying to get from A to B and get through their day. Q: You're in the new film about Bob Dylan and that period in New York. HL: Well, I found the connection in his lyrics, through his music, and through his poetry. And it was an incredible experience. Director Todd Haynes, I consider to be a genius. The footage I've seen of this film is just astounding. Cate Blanchett has given such an incredible transformation in this movie. It's going to blow you away. I mean she walks, talks, sings, smells like Bob Dylan. Q: How does Bob Dylan smell? HL: Not very good. Q: Have you met him? HL: No. I haven't, but you know. Q: What was a turning point in your life? HL: Well, I could tell you that meeting Michelle in "Brokeback" was something that took me in another direction. In a good way. Well, I've got a baby girl, you know, and I live in Brooklyn. In every sense. Yeah. She was living there for a couple of years before I got there, obviously. Q: Has having a family changed your career? HL: No. I didn't immediately get an edge to go out and be a voice in an animated film, but it definitely changes the person you are and I think your personal evolutions run hand-in-hand to professional evolution, you know, performance and the person you are kind of grow simultaneously. So I think it affects performance more than choice, perhaps. Q: Do you like Christmas here or in Australia? HL: I don't know, not necessarily, it's the same thing, it's the same food. It's definitely novel for me seeing the snow. Singing "dashing through the snow" is weird when you're at a barbecue in 140 degree heat. So it never made sense to me until now. Q: What was a favorite Christmas in Australia? HL: They were just always the same. They were always the same every year in Australia. Which was not necessarily a bad thing, but it was, you know, Christmas in Australia is obviously different from Christmas over here. You don't get skis and snowboards, you get surfboards and sun towels and you go to the beach after your Christmas dinner and lunch. I don't know if I can recall a Christmas particularly. Q: Are you still committed to Brooklyn? I read that you bought a home in LA. HL: Yeah. We are. It was purely that Michelle was working there, and when Michelle is working I'm the nanny, and when I'm working, Michelle's the nanny. And so when she was working, I was in a hotel room about the size of this, and I was just, it was really hard and whether we like it or not, you go in and out of LA all the time. So we found a one-bedroom treehouse up in the hills out there and it's just a place to drop our bags. Q: Are you excited about your new films, especially if they can draw more Oscar attention? HL: No. I've never had high expectations of my work and certainly I'm not going to let that plague my thoughts and I'm just going to continue to choose what feels right for me at the time and go with it. Q: How do you think the attention being give your co-star Abby Cornish [who has had an affair with Ryan Phillippe--who is separated from Reese Witherspoon] will affect this film's box office? HL: I don't know. It's unfortunate for everyone involved, I guess. It's really none of my business, but the way you asked the question, I guess I cannot not answer it, I guess. I don't know how it affects the box office. I'm not sure if there will be one for this film, so I don't know, to tell you the truth. |
