Late Night With Conan O'Brien
Brothers Grimm Interview
Friday, 19 August 2005
Transcribed from VHS by HeathHEATHENS.com
Conan O'Brien: My first guest has starred in such films as Monster’s Ball & The Patriot. His new movie, The Brothers Grimm, opens August 26th. Please welcome Heath Ledger.
Heath bounds out from backstage, wearing his dark pin-striped suit jacket, button with the middle button, over a white t-shirt. He has on the lapel pin ribbon that he wore to the Brothers Grimm premiere, and rust/red leather (my guess is hand-sewn) lace-up boots. He’s full of exuberance and energy.
Conan: Thanks for comin’.
Heath: Thanks for havin’ me.
C: Ya gotta little bit of Conan energy there!
H: Yeah! Rawr! I was watching you before, and I’m a little keyed up.
C: Apparently you’ve had a lot of sugar, yeah!
H: I have.
C: No, Thanks for comin’; first of all . . . uh, those are cool!
(points to Heath’s new boots.)
H: Yeah, they’re all right, huh?
C: Look at that!
H: I got a-attacked by a cat on the way here. They weren’t supposed
to be red. . .
C: Yeah, that would frighten any animal, yeah . . . that’s cool, though.
Now, I wanna ask you something first of all, you are originally
from Australia, but I don’t know where in Australia . . .
H: Ah, Perth, Western Australia
C: Perth. Never been to Perth, but . . . absolutely beautiful place Australia.
H: It is; It is beautiful, yeah.
C: Fantastic, but now you live in Brooklyn.
H: Yup. (audience cheers and Heath gives the thumbs up)
C: And I was thinking, like, . . . Uh-oh, they’re gonna be waiting for me when I leave (referring to audience) "What’dya sayin bout Brooklyn".
No, Brooklyn’s great, but I can’t imagine a place that would be more opposite
H: Yeah
C: than Australia, right? I mean it’s just gotta be completely different.
H: It is, and that’s kinda what I love about it at this point. I was after some . . . a change, you know? Um . . . It’s just so quiet; it’s real living, ya know, and I’m lugging my laundry down to the laundrymat, uh, you know my duties right now are just keeping the house clean, my girlfriend happy, . . . um . . .
C: Right, . . . I love that you just say, like yah, I had to get outa Australia so I could lug some laundry around, ya know?
Transcribed by HeathHEATHENS.com
H: (Laughs - Audience laughs) That’s good.
C: But but you also, ya get hounded a bit in Australia, you’re . . . you know, a big star anywhere, but in Australia the paparazzi kinda gives you a hard time?
H: Yeah, I guess so; I mean . . . look, (pfeww) they’re bored, I think. You know. They don’t get many people going down to Australia, and so it’s uh . . . you know.
C: They’ve got all the photos of Crocodile Dundee they would ever want . . .
H: ( laughs)
C: They’re like, "We’ve gotta get Heath now."
H: Yeah
C: So you come to Brooklyn, and the paparazzi, they don’t really want to go into Brooklyn to badly, right?
H: Nah, couldn’t care less; it’s great,
Audience member: Yeah.
H: Yeh.
C: (to audience member) You settle down, sir, or I’ll come up there. We’ll let Mr. T take care of that guy.
(Heath Laughs)
C: But uh . . . so you’re having a good time, and I know that, sometimes in Australia when you’ve had a hard time with the paparazzi, um . . . and it’s common among stars, they tend to lose it, once in a while . . .
H: (under his breath) slap’em around?
C: You’ve actually thrown, you throw stuff at them?
H: (Pause) Yeh . . . (uncomfortable giggle)
(Audience laughs at Heath’s fidgeting)
C: I think people are behind you on that; I don’t think anyone’s complaining, but what do you throw?
H: I’ve thrown an egg . . . or two, yeh . . . not at them just kinda next to them, so it splatters up against them. . . (uncomfortable laugh)
C: You’ve put a lotta thought into it . . .
H: But that’s how pathetic it is; like that’s what we were reduced to, you know, like ya can’t . . . ya can’t actually stand up and slap them; I mean, when they kinda spy in on you, and ya trying to like bathe out in the sun, and ya, you're with ya girlfriend and your friends & your family, and they’re spying in on you, it actually feels like you're getting a slap across the face . . .
C: Right, right.
H: And we can’t physically stand up and hit them back, of course . . . it’d be rude, and against the law (heh), um . . . so you just, you get an egg an . . . (makes lobbing motion)
C: That’s a good idea. Do you carry eggs with you? Do you have an egg dispenser . . .
H: Yeh . . . (laughs)
C: . . . strapped to your chest at all times.
H: (makes gunslinging sounds as he whips imaginary eggs from holsters and lobs them at imaginary paparazzi)
C: Very nice. That’s a cool sound, by the way.
H: Thanks a lot; I got more . . .
C: This guy provides his own sound effects.
H: sound effects (laughs)
C: Now, um, correct me if I’m wrong; I’m an idiot, but Australia now is having, . . . we’re in the summer, but it’s the winter for Australia, is that right?
H: Yeh
C : Does that mean like, snow and people cooking at the chimney and uh . . . what does it mean when it’s winter in Australia.
H: Umm. . . what does it mean? Uh . . .
C: I mean, does it get really cold, are the kangaroos wearing mittens ? . . .
H: Not really. I mean, it was quite confusing growing up, I mean . . . for example, I mean . . . Christmas time in Australia, I grew up . . . uh you know . . . around the bar-b-que, kinda cooking sausages n steaks, in 40 degree heat, sweating, in flip-flops and shorts, and singlets, singing (Heath sings) Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh, o’er the fields we go . . .
C: Yeah right, it’s not the same experience that you’ve seen . . . yeah . . . you’re getting a sunburn, and ah, it sounds kinda cool, though. . . It sounds like it’d be a good time.
H: It is; it’s beautiful, yeah.
C: Now I wanna ask you, one of the things that’s famous in Australia is there’s an aboriginal instrument . . .
Transcribed by HeathHEATHENS.com
H: Mmm-hmmm
C: that’s well-known, which is called the didgeri. . .
H: Didgeridoo
C : Didgeridoo
H: Yeh . . .
C: and I’ve seen it in certain movies, and I’m sure everyone here has heard it. It’s that kinda (makes didgeridoo sounds with hands and lips)
H: Yeah, that’s really good . . .
C: I’m not done . . .
Heath & audience laughs
C: Sorry. Uh . . . But ah, it’s such a cool instrument, and it turns out, I’ve heard that you play the didgeridoo.
H: I can play the didgeridoo, yeh . . .
C: Really?
H: Real . . . yeah.
C: Cuz we happen to have a didgeridoo right here . . . (reaches behind chair)
H: (laughs uncomfortably and wipes his forehead)
C: You know what’s amazing? I’ve had this didgeridoo back here for 12 years . . .
H: Hah! . . .
C: And I’m always like . . . "Al Roker?" And he’s like, "No!" (shakes head no) Desperate Housewives? No . . . But if you could give us a demonstration, is that all right?
H: O.k., sure . . .
C: Am I even holding this right? I don’t know which is the right end . . .
H: (Heath takes didge) Do you know how they, they, make these, they find these . . . the aboriginals will walk through the uh . . . in the outback, and they walk up to trees, n this (running hand down the didge) is like the trunk of a tree, and they tap it like this.
(Makes tapping sound on didge).
And they listen to it . . . and listen to the sound, whether or not it’s hollow; it’s actually termites that kinda bite their way through, and clear it out . . .
C: So they find a piece of wood that’s been hollowed out already by a termite?
H: That’s right. Then they cut the tree down and turn it into this.
All right . . . (stretches & shifts into playing position)
C: All right, let’s give it a shot. And are the termites out by now? Do you have to . . . ?
H: Yeh. . . no.
C: O.k.
H: So ya gotta be really really quiet . . .
C: K, here we go.
( Heath gives a quick blow, as a joke, the way he did on Ellen in 2004. Audience laughs.)
H: Thank you very much!
(Heath now really plays several seconds on the didge, this time adding an interesting thumping sound to his repertoire at the end.. )
Audience applauds and Heath smiles.
C: That is cool, actually! That’s a cool sound!
H: (handing didge back to Conan) Put it back there for another 20 years . . . (laughing)
C: That’s a cool sound.
H: D’ya wanna give it a shot?
C: How would I? What d’ya do ta do it? I don’t even know.
H: Give it a go.
(Conan makes the same screeching sounds that Ellen did. Be glad you can’t hear it! LOL)
(Yells into didge mouth) "This isn’t working for me!"
Heath laughs.
C: I think I just threw up into it. I’m sorry. I got tense, it has something to do with the lips, though, probably.
H: That was good. That was pretty close, yeah.
C: It’s a very eerie, sort of ominous sound . . .
H: Yeh . . . It’s hypnotic almost, isn’t it? Trancelike.
C: Yeah, yeah . . . I will do your bidding now.
(Heath laughs)
C: Can you solo on it? You ever bang out, . . . can you do like a Hendrix solo?
H: Oh, I’d love to; I’d love to. . . I should’ve at least an album or something like that. (Laughs)
C: Alright, I thank you very much for doing that, we . . . let’s talk about The Brothers Grimm.
H: Yeah.
C: Ahhh. . . actual . . . we’ve all heard of the brothers Grimm. These are actual people from the 19th century that I guess,. . . uh . . . well, you tell it. You’ll tell it better than I will.
H: Sure, well, the actual people were, ya know, um. . . highly respected scholars. You know, in Germany, and they collected folk lores, folk tales, and ya know . . .um. . . actually, in actual fact, Jacob, my character, went on to become a politician.
Uhh . . . they wrote half the German dictionary, la-dadada-da . . . (that’s Heath’s version of Yada yada yada. LOL) . . . then there’s our film . . . and uh, . . . our film’s, I dunno if you’ve seen it or not, but it’s a Terry Gilliam version of this, so it’s a fairy tale. Um . . . and uh . . . it’s a beautiful film. It’s uh. . . very eccentric; Terry Gilliam’s one of my favorite directors; he’s done incredible films, going back to like, Monty Python era and stuff . . . I adore him.
And so basically, in this film, Matt Damon is my brother, and the two of us kinda go from town to town bilking these villagers for their kinda hard-earned . . . um dollar. Um . . .and we set up these little scams where we pretend to vanquish their towns of these kinda mill-witches, and uh you know, bridge trolls, when in actual fact, we’re setting em up . . . setting up little scenarios with actors . . .
C: You’re scamming them a little bit.
H: Scamming them, that’s right. And then we encounter a real enchanted forest, and that’s the story . . .
C: It’s sorta the uh . . . historical meets. . . sort of the fantasy element here. . .
H: Yeah, that’s right.
C: We have a clip here. Is there anything we need to know specifically for this?
H: Uh, no. Go for it.
C: Oh, alright. (Everyone laughs) How refreshing. Let’s take a look at this clip from The Brothers Grimm . . .
Clip shows . . . (It’s the "he’s my daughter" . . . "and a fine wife he’ll make some man, someday" . . . clip) Audience applauds . . .
C: The Brothers Grimm opens August 26th. Hey Heath, thanks so much for comin’ by, yeah.
(Shakes Heath’s hand.)
H: Thanks so much for having me, yeah.