I can believe that they developed some kind of crush on each other. I can imagine it going both ways... whether or not Michelle was in the picture. I feel like their friendship was separate from things like that. Jake speaks at some length in the GQ interview about his friendship with Heath and the nature of that friendship in relation to making BBM and then how it was during the publicity and then later. For those who haven't had a chance to read the whole thing... there are a few comments that seem pretty significant about how he saw his connection to Heath.
"We balanced each other out. When I think about these things that happened then, we were very much alive in that movie. We were really living that movie. Not literally, but you think about those times in your life...
[then it seems the interviewer interrupts him and asks..."Did Heath never do anything that annoyed you?"]
"No. I always admired Heath. I always was kind of enamored of him..."
Then, there's the comment referenced on this thread before... "I think we felt safe together."
And later he says..."We'd talk a few times a month. I mean, he was a friend. He was like my creative partner."
It's a pretty profound interview... he declines to comment about what it was like learning about Heath's death during the Brothers filmming. And then some of what he says seems a little engimatic... lots of incomplete thoughts and some comments that seem important but a little unclear. You get the sense that this really was an emotional interview.
I dunno. Jake might have thought this in retrospect. And we only have Jake's side of the story. All Heath talked about besides the movie was becoming enamored of Michelle and the birth of Mathilda, so perhaps Jake's memories of his feelings have become magnified by Heath's death.
I remember the Oprah interview - that I have on tape. When the group was asked, "Who is the life of the party?" everyone pointed to Jake. Obviously, the shoot was just as full of laughter and enjoyment as it was deep emotion and pain.