Heath Ledger's Lonesome Trail

On this strange quest, Ledger met success. ''I got to the point where it worked: Nobody wanted to work with me.'' He laughs. ''I'd finally — whether consciously or unconsciously — I perfectly sabotaged any studio interest in working with me.''

In 1997, Annie Proulx wrote a story about intensely filmable people (modern cowboys) getting up to something' pretty unfilmable (having sex with each other). Actors had been romancing Brokeback Mountain, as if it were a beautiful rancher's daughter with a drug problem. Who'd be man enough to play gay?'' My agent told me, 'I think you're perfect for this one.'

It's a simple story. Ennis Del Mar falls in love with Jack Twist, then spends two decades frustrating the other man's attempts to love him at close range. Producers initially saw Ledger as Jack. He, of course, said no. ''Because unlike Jake [Gyllenhaal], who had to pretend he was comfortable, Ennis was fucking... fighting it.'' After all, for years, what, had Ledger been doing but Ennis Del Mar? Subtract the romance, and Ennis was who Ledger had been playing since he left his dad's garage.

The film shot for four months in the mountains of Calgary, Alberta, winter melting off to a cool, stubby spring. At night, Ledger was falling in love with Michelle Williams. By day, the work with Jake. For eight weeks, the sex scenes loomed ahead of them, the motel and bedroll stuff that had run other actors off.

''My biggest anxiety,'' Ledger says, ''wasn't having to kiss Jake.'' For a decade, he'd been hoping for the right part — the chance to show what he could do. ''It was a perfect script, and Ang Lee was the perfect director. So the anxiety for me was — I didn't want to be the one to fuck it up.'' He laughs. ''And I was willing to do anything...''

So that's how you approached the love scenes? He looks at me sharply. I mean, you'd never thought--

''About going out and fucking a guy for the first time?'' he asks.

''Look, I've experienced love. I know how to love a woman — and I've been in love with many women, and I am in love with the most beautiful woman right now — so I know the extent of love. I guess you'd love for me to say that it was difficult, that I wanted to vomit. But the straight sact is, it was just another person. Now, by no means do I wanna fuck him, we're both very straight and sensible. It wasn't like Ang said, 'OK, guys, just have fun with it — roll camera!' 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. Because if for a second we stopped believing, and looked into Heath and Jake's eyes, it would have been 'Oh, God. OK. Hmm. This is...'"

''I've Been in Love with many women, and I'm in love with the most Beautiful Woman right now.''

His eyes move away, then back to 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.''

Ledger stands, asks the time, nods. ''I've gotta get back to my girl. Girls.'' In October, Michelle Williams gave birth to the couple's daughter: Matilda Hose. Ledger jokes that he's carrying twenty-five extra pounds of sympathy weight. ''Don't want to be away too long. I've gotta keep the house clean, my girls fed. I've got duties.''

Heading down the sidewalk to his motorcycle, he asks, ''How many more questions you got on you? Do you maybe want to come out to Brooklyn, then? In the next few days — we'll grab a few beers, go for a walk.''

As weeks pass, it's clear: I've been Ennis-ed. There's no call to Brooklyn. So in the interim, I speak with Annie Proulx, who wrote the story ''Brokeback Mountain.'' She has won a Pulitzer Prize and speaks in a voice that's small and precise as a granite chip. ''Heath understood the character better than I did,'' she says. ''It scared me how much he got inside Ennis.''

And I call Ang Lee. Lee knew the picture simply could not work if Ennis wasn't right: ''He anchors the movie.'' During production Lee watched the actor become a star. ''You spend so much money to make movies, and usually it rests on a face or two.'' Lee says. ''The audience identifies with themselves, with human faces. You need good actors. But you also need the image to carry the movie on — and that's the movie star. I think Heath is both. I didn't know for sure before. After this movie. I hope people will want to bet their movie on him.''

The backstage romance — Ledger falling for Williams — Lee saw as a good thing. ''On the set I push him toward Jake,'' he says, ''and off the set he has this great escape the other way.'' The director is pleased for the couple. ''The baby keeps staring at me. Michelle said she doesn't usually stare at people like that. I said maybe she remembers I am the reason she came into existence.''

When I speak with Ledger again, we're on the phone. It's a few weeks later. His voice is backed by clucking people and shutting doors. ''We've got Michelle's parents — Michelle's mom and, um, her boyfriend — and Michelle's sister is in town. So we're all running around frantically here. I'm kind of pulling the tired-father card.''