You're right, Natali. It wouldn't make sense that he would make the two decisions simultaneously, and I shouldn't have shorthanded it that way. What I was thinking was, he turned down a big opportunity -- playing a superhero in a big-budget summer blockbuster -- but then (several years later) took a risky opportunity -- playing a gay man in a low-budget art-house romance that, supposedly, was expected to be low-profile.
I thought it showed integrity to have made both those decisions. I read about it a couple of places, I think, but here's an excerpt from Rolling Stone, which describes him turning down Spider-Man not for scheduling reasons but on artistic grounds:
After the triple dreamboat whammy of 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot (as a publicist's fantasy: Mel Gibson's son) and A Knight's Tale, he found himself at the big studio table. Executives mapped out a career with the shape of an Entourage season: billboards and paydays. They wanted this Aussie kid from Perth ("It's the most isolated city in the world") to play Spider-Man. Ledger walked out. "I was like, 'Ah, fucking hell. I'm part of a machine.' I started to feel like a bottle of Coke. And there was a whole marketing scheme on to turn me into a very popular bottle. And 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."
Two things:
-- Playing Mel Gibson's son is probably no longer a publicist's fantasy
-- Here's an example of why I don't trust celebrity journalism. From your excerpt:
From Rolling Stone:
A dare: Who'd be man enough to play gay? My agent told me, 'You're perfect for this one,'" Heath Ledger says.
I guess the two quotes aren't quite mutually exclusive, but ...
Yeah, celebrity journalism is really unrealiable. They really give journalist a bad name, don't they? Anyway, what I wrote about actors wanting Superhero roles came from an article I read a long time ago, when
Batman and Robin was released in 1995. Don't remember where I read it. I guess not everyone thinks the same, but also Heath's situation has changed now. Then he was a single man, with no responsbiliities and lots of time to take on different roles, and explore with movies. Now he has a daughter to think about, and two homes.
Also, The Joker is a challenging role, IMO, more than playing Spiderman I guess. I don't see Tobey Maguire needing to make much effort to be convincing. And Kirsten Dunst's performance is about the worst I've seen in my life, considering how good she did in
Interview with a Vampire. She's really bad, and annoying. However, they've been paid a lot of money.
Like I said, I think Heath has a challenge ahead with this role because a lot of people are doubting his talent and acting capabilities, because of Jack Nicholson's oustanding and impressive performance in
Batman. Heath is a great actor, but Nicholson is a legend.