Author Topic: Heath Ledger in his own Words  (Read 184682 times)

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Heath Ledger in his own Words
« on: January 30, 2008, 03:35:49 am »
I found these by searching thinkexist.com:


“I only do this because I'm having fun. The day I stop having fun, I'll just walk away.”

“I'm not good at future planning. I don't plan at all. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't have a day planner and I don't have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future.”

“It transcends a label. It's a story of two human beings that are in love; get over the fact that it's two men — that's the point.”

“It's not a disease. It's not contagious. They should understand that it's a story of pure love. They don't have to be a hero. They don't have to be brave like us. I guess a little bit of maturity is being asked for because society has been immature in the past. That's about it.”

“I take a lot of photos of people.”

“We had a good sense of humor about it, because we knew what we were holding on to and how it was going to exceed expectations and [labels]. We weren't running around naked in chaps swinging pink guns in the air. We knew that, and we found it funny that no one else did.”

“Aren't we at the stage these days when it just doesn't ... matter? It's a story of love and it's a story between two people. If people can't get over that and just accept it as a story, then that's their problem. I'm big enough and brave enough to do it.”

“I'm still a kid. I'm like six years old. But it's just a matter of wanting to get up, it's just a big journey. I felt like when I left home that I was on a journey, and I still am.”

“If you just be safe about the choices you make, you don't grow.”

“It was pretty clear that this story hadn't been put to screen. It's not very often that you come across a story that hasn't been made.”

“The movie's already exceeded any expectations I had. I think pleasing Annie Proulx, the writer, and getting her nod of approval was the biggest success for me, for us.”
 
“[Banning it] is hilarious and very immature of a society. If two people are loving ... I think we should be more concerned if two people express anger in love, than love.”
 
“We certainly weren't going out of our way to make a change in the world. We didn't make the film for any kind of political movement. We never expected to change people's minds; but if it does affect people's hearts, if perceptions can get altered, that's a good thing.”

“Bronte is scaring me at the moment. I feel like the paparazzi are going to kick me out of that city.”
 
“Personally, I don't think the movie is (controversial), but I think maybe the Mormons in Utah do. I think it's hilarious and very immature of a society.”

“I had a dear friend of mine, who's my uncle. He's a big guy. He goes to bare-knuckle fighting out in the Nevada desert, and he's gay.”

“I still find it personally disappointing that people kind of go out of their way to voice their disgust or their opinions against the ways in which two people choose to love one another. I think that's really unfortunate.”

“It was an opportunity to tell a story that hadn't been put on the screen. The character is so tragic. I really enjoyed how little words he had to express his battle and express his inability to love.”

“It was one of about 60 television interviews I completed in that sitting and it sounds like you landed the dud,”
 
 “Thousands of women were falling in love with him all the time. So when he finally finds a woman who isn't attracted to any of that, that's what really devastates him, and interests him.”

“We've been incredibly successful this year by meeting little Matilda. That's it.”

“It was an opportunity not to take acting too seriously. We obviously weren't taking Casanova too seriously. Essentially we were borrowing his name and his legend and just having fun with it.”

“Since my profession had wound me up, I needed something in my profession to wind me down. I couldn't just go home; I would have gone mad. So I went to Venice, floated around the city, drank wine, ate pasta. I needed to just breathe, relax . . . and got paid for it.”

“I felt this was such a refreshing story of love. For me, our characters were also complex, and to...really investigate this form of humanity and expression of love was an opportunity that I hadn't had.”

 “I wasn't prepared to expose stories about something so special and wonderfully private that is happening in my life. I guess a part of me wishes that I'd never have to and that maybe I could protect this special time. I was dreaming.”

“I have kind of been living out of bags for the past 13 years. I will just stick to that,”

“I'm sorry you were asking me these questions so early and I hadn't figured out a way to speak of it in public, ... I apologize for my terrible interview skills.”

Please use this thread to add other quotes of Heath's...

« Last Edit: May 30, 2008, 11:04:35 pm by TOoP/Bruce »
Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath in his own Words
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2008, 04:18:26 am »
"It's always awkward doing love scenes - whether it be with a man or a woman."

"We had to choreograph, it was definitely like walking on the moon for the first time. But it wasn't... the butt of a mule: I was kissing a human being with a soul. And part of the magic of acting is, you harness the infinite power of belief."

"It was the most kind of complex and internal character I've been offered to play and it would take a very mature performance out of me to complete this character. It was a perfect script and involves a story that hadn't been told which is hard to find in this industry and in general. I think the story of love is just getting recycled and stale and this just hadn't been put to screen. I thought I'd be crazy to turn it down."

"I'm very expressive and have investigated love and you know, love is love. It's never been a problem. I could have taught Ennis a thing or two, but I couldn't. I was never shocked by the idea that men could fall in love with each other. I always knew and respected that."

"Everyone asks you know 'what was the most difficult thing for you,' or 'physically what was the hardest thing,' expecting me to say, 'oh, making out with Jake Gyllenhaal. and it's a really obvious thing to say, but at the end of the day after the first take (pause, makes kissing motion) it was like, ok let's get on with the day. Let's get through it. And all the mystery had been taken away. It really wasn't such a big deal. And yeah, he's a good kisser."

'I'm always gonna pull myself apart and dissect it. I mean, there's no such thing as perfection in what we do. Pornos are more perfect than we are, because they're actually f__king.''

'' No one else around you, except your mum, is going to tell you that, you suck. She straight-up told me. 'There are other things to do in life.'''

''I started to feel like a bottle of Coke,'' he says. ''And there was a whole marketing scheme to turn me into a very popular bottle. And, you know, Coke tastes like shit. But there's posters everywhere so people will buy it. So I felt like I tasted like shit, and I was being bought for no reason.''

''I'd been concentrating on how to act,'...not how to... be a salesman. Agents, publicists — they all say, 'Go out and create a character!' I don't want to create a fucking character, but on the same hand I don't want to give myself, I either. When you don't go on Letterman and say, 'Hey! I've got a joke!' — when you sit there honest and nervous and like a normal human being, you get written down as boring and ungrateful.''

''I wanted to take the blond out of my career, kill the direction it was going. I wanted to be bad, I wanted to be good. I was like, 'Well, now, how am I gonna make this a career I would like to have?''' If no audiences came, ''Good. That's gonna help me out.''

''I'd finally — whether consciously or unconsciously — I perfectly sabotaged any studio interest in working with me.''

'You know when you see the preachers down South? And they grab a believer and they go, 'Bwoom! I touch you with the hand of God!' And they believe so strongly, they're on the ground shaking and spitting. And fuck's sake, that's the power of belief.'' (He shakes his head). ''Now, I don't believe in Jesus, but I believe in my performance. And if you can understand that the power of belief is one of the great tools of our time and that a lot of acting comes from it, you can do anything.''


Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline Katie77

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Re: Heath in his own Words
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2008, 05:08:38 am »
These are great.....a real insight into Heath......as you say, "In his own words".
Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect.

It means you've decided to see beyond the imperfection

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath in his own Words
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2008, 05:13:03 am »
"I actually thought it was a gift not to have words to play with. It definitely restricts what you can express. You are stuck with what's on page. In a sense, I had the freedom to say what I really wanted. In fact, I can make my own decisions and come to conclusions about this character from the physical point of view. First of all, I had to go in and discover what was causing this inability to express and to love. What was the culprit in that? I figured that it was some sort of a battle, and the conclusion I came to was that he was battling himself and battling his genetic structure; he was battling his father and his father's father's opinion and traditions and fears that have been passed down and deeply imbedded in him. So, once I had that and a few other things, I wanted to physicalize it cause that was all I was really left with. I wanted it to be hard for him to express and I think any form of expression had to be painful. I wanted him to be a clenched fist; and therefore my mouth became clenched too. A lot of the physicalization was lack of posture, but with the lack of posture in his mouth; in the words, it escapes his mouth."

"...I have a very good friend of mine, who's actually an uncle of mine. I didn't base this character off him, but he's gay. He's always struggled with his sexuality. He's like 60 now but back when he was younger, his dad kicked him of the Perth and said to him, "Go to the hospital and get fixed or you're not coming back to the family." My uncle said, "I can't get fixed" and his dad said to don't come back and he left and hasn't been back since then, but he's also the most masculine person I know. He's the head of arm wrestling federation and he goes to cage fighting. So that was definitely a good example of the level of masculinity, the range of masculinity; there relationships that occur with him. It's purely masculine and it was important for Ennis to be that. "

"Ned Kelly was extremely expressive; physically, violently. He dictates this incredibly expressive manner about his cause and he was very in touch with what he was fighting against; whereas Ennis was very unaware about the battle within him. I knew the battle within so I tried to do the investigation and I chose to ask the questions about him but he has never asked these questions and that's part of his problem. He's unaware of this battle within him and so essentially as an actor, once I gathered all this information about him, I had to then perform as Ennis and forget the information I learned and essentially think less. "

"...I think most of the emotions or love within Ennis is purely potential. It's within him and he never really expresses. That's the tragedy of this story and that's the tragedy of each one of those love affairs. I think the only time you get to see this potential or slither of how he could express is when he's with his children; because his children are the one area where he feels safe and allowed to love the way he naturally feels he can love them. With his wife, his love is slightly manufactured. It's more traditional and it's him conforming, but it's not true love. His love for Jack is true in a passionate love, but he hates the way he loves and it's forbidden. Essentially, he's like a homophobic male in love with another man. He's very fixed in his ways and he's left lingering in between the role. "

"The way we looked it and the way it is is that there are not actually love scenes for the sake of doing a love scene. There are actually stories within each of those moments. The first moment for Ennis was very poignant because it had to be rough; it had to be fighting. He was almost ready to punch him. Once that all settled it had to be this innate passionate adrenaline. It just takes over him. There's another moment in the tent where it was really important to show a glimpse of Ennis in a vulnerable state. It is true intimate love they have for each other. It has to set up the tragedy for the story. It set up the freedom of Brokeback Mountain. "

"I think it's a great honor to be in a movie that's been well received. .... Michelle and I definitely don't really sit around worried about it. It's also a little surreal; kind of a strange concept to me that one performance or one movie can be compared or competed against another and that's what this strange little season does. Each performance and each movie is running a different race. It's a different sport. We all train for different sports and we all start from different points. There is no one finished line at the end. It's an award season of opinions, so it's full of false sense of success and failure."




Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Heath Ledger in his own Words
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2008, 05:31:53 am »
Thanks, Bruce, I'm reading avidly.

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath Ledger in his own Words
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2008, 08:02:49 am »
A Knight's Tale:

"I've been riding horses since I was a kid so the only thing I had to get used to was the lance. Jousting is tame by comparison with Aussie sports"  "I found the dancing scenes in the film much harder to do. I'm not one of nature's most gifted dancers."


"The past year has just been mad for me." "I haven't really had a chance to let the fame thing sink in or ask questions about it all."

"I felt a bit of pressure when I first saw my face on the poster for The Patriot, you can't help but be intimidated by that."

"I miss Australia, I miss my family, I miss being a big brother."

"All this has been strange for my family but interesting as well because they've been experiencing similar little changes like people calling them up who they haven't seen in 20 years and the press calling them, so they're having to deal with that. It's been a little bit of a shock to them, but they are proud and happy and they are getting used to it."

"If anything you wish that if one place wasn't to change it would be your home town but I was back there recently and they were documenting every meal I had every day." It was in the paper that I ate fettucini on Tuesday, still that's front page news in Perth."
 
"I tend to detach myself and realise that my life is my five best friends and my 20 friends beyond that and my family. All of a sudden over the past few months there are these people around you, these associates and beyond that there's the whole world. It's curious."

"What I have to keep reminding myself is that no matter what they talk about or what they say about you or the pressures, that life in here," (touching his chest) "is what I originally had and what I still have and still cherish. As long as I can keep my head there I'm fine, it's not really a hard thing for me to do."



« Last Edit: January 30, 2008, 12:38:00 pm by TOoP/Bruce »
Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath Ledger in his own Words
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2008, 08:13:26 am »
"Why do I act? We need to work to eat. I don't live to work, I work to live. This happens to be something that I love to do. I get a million things out of it, but money is about the most important one."

"I don’t have that much forward planning about what I want to do in the future. But I guess once I find something, like if I’m doing Lords of Dogtown, I really like to flip the scale on the next job I’m doing. It’s almost like you are a switchboard in a sound booth and on one job you use one side and by the end of the job you are kind of exhausted by it, but you didn’t use any of the other side over here so you have to find something that will mean you using this half of your brain, energy wise, and that’s how Brokeback Mountain and Casanova complimented each other. Brokeback was excruciating and Casanova was drinking wine and eating pasta, it was like a holiday. But I’ve got no future plans, I don’t know what I’m going to do next as along as it scares me, as long as it’s something new, as long as I get to scare other people. As long as it’s an opportunity to evolve and grow as an actor and a person and challenge myself."

« Last Edit: January 31, 2008, 04:47:35 am by TOoP/Bruce »
Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath Ledger in his own Words
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2008, 08:17:08 am »
“You want to know the truth? The short story, [“Brokeback Mountain”) was published in 1997. It was optioned to become a movie in 1998. My first American movie was ’10 Things I Hate About You’ in 1999. There were so many actors during the past seven years who have been attached to ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ yet who have been convinced by their managers, agents, publicists, or all three combined, not to do it, because it would ruin their career. I was approached to make the movie, maybe because I was the last on the list, in early 2004 and didn’t think twice about it. The same can be said about Jake (Gyllenhaal). Neither of us needed to have ‘permission’ from our agents to make this movie. It was our decision alone. To be honest, nobody advised me to not do the movie. Fear is manufactured by the studios putting up money. Focus (the studio releasing “Brokeback Mountain) has had a track record with quality hard-to-market films, including ‘Far From Heaven,’ which also just happened to be a film with gay undertones."



“The challenge wasn’t the gay aspect of the movie. In fact, in this year, 2005, I can’t understand why anyone, agent, manager, publicist, would even question any actor taking any gay role. But, back to the challenge of the movie. I age twenty years. That was a huge challenge. As was getting the accent of my character just right, since, as he gets older, his voice gets deeper."


Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath Ledger in his own Words
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2008, 08:30:35 am »
"...once I read it I understood what type of Casanova they wanted to make. And so I thought it would be a lot of fun, an opportunity to take what I do not too seriously and I understood that Brokeback Mountain was going to be really hard so that this would be a great way to relax in Venice for five months "(laughs).

"I mean obviously Brokeback Mountain was an obstacle I felt I could never climb, I could never defeat, that it was too tough but ultimately decided to do it. And with that I came out with a real sense of accomplishment which was something that I lacked in the movies that I’ve done before, I’d never felt that I’m accomplished anything. But then in both Brothers Grimm and Casanova there was a lot to enjoy. Brothers Grimm was the first time I’ve been let loose and use my kind of frantic energy and twitching and nervousness and clumsiness and Terry Gilliam is very good at allowing you to do that. He sets you free and creates an environment where you can feel safe enough to be bad – he lets you be bad and he lets you be big, which is fun. And with Lasse on Casanova he created such a lovely atmosphere on the set, with such a great group of people, cast and crew, that it really helped the film."

"I did do quite a bit of research and I already knew little bits of information about (Cassanova), all the obvious kind of things. But I was curious to know more and got hold of all his journals and read a couple of them and flicked through the rest. But there was no real point in tying myself down to historical correctness because the movie wasn’t and the story wasn’t. But particularly after coming off of Brokeback which was so serious and lonely and at times tortuous and I went from that to Casanova and I really wanted to not take acting seriously, not take movies seriously, I just wanted to have fun. And I wanted to come home smiling after work and so by throwing away all the history it allowed me to do that. And it gave me a clean slate so I just kind of created my own character."


"It was a vacation really. I’ve never spent this much time in Venice and it ended up being a four and a half month guided tour of Venice. Every day we ended up being taken to the most beautiful parts of Venice to shoot so essentially it was like filming a movie inside a museum which was really cool. And you know, working with great people, great crew. It was a lovely experience."





« Last Edit: January 30, 2008, 02:02:37 pm by TOoP/Bruce »
Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

Offline TOoP/Bruce

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Re: Heath Ledger in his own Words
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2008, 08:33:34 am »
Q: You have a tattoo on your right arm which reads ‘Old Man River’ What does that mean?


Heath Ledger: It’s got a few meanings, they all have many meanings, and I usually get tattoos when I need to be reminded of something but the answer I’ll give you (laughs) is that it has nothing to do with the song, I just felt there was something eternal about the phrase and I feel that I’m at a stage in my life now where life is just about to really speed up and flash by and so I feel like I am on old man river paddling on a little row boat. That’s my answer for today (laughs). This one (points to left forearm) Is my sisters and my mum, Cate, Ashley, Olvia and Sally – yes ‘chaos’ or Sony when it’s upside down which I discovered when it was too late (laughs). and thought ‘oh great..’

Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40