Heath Ledger's Lonesome Trail

The phone offers one consolation. When I ask about his former girlfriends, there's less chance of Ledger pitching a fit. He once dated Heather Graham and Naomi Watts, and like any sensible human being I'm interested in hearing about it.

''Well, I don't...'' Ledger begins. ''I'd honestly, out of respect for both Naomi and Michelle, I really would rather not dive into the past.'' Which is about as sporting a demur as you're going to get. For the record, he dated Graham for less than a year, when he was twenty-two and she was just past thirty. For the record, he dated Watts for nearly two years — she was thirty-five, he twenty-five — with a one-month, neutral-corners breather in the middle. She described their breakup to a reporter as sad and inevitable: ''I think deep down we both knew there wasn't a forever plan.''

But then Ledger gives the particulars on how he met Williams, 25, who's still probably best known as Jen, the girl with the darkest back story on Dawson's Creek. It was the first day of shooting. ''We were knee-deep in snow,'' he says. ''And on the fifth take, Michelle and I tobogganing down the hill, we were supposed to fall off. having a fun time, ho ho ho. And Michelle was screaming in pain. And I thought she's acting: ha ha ha. 'No, I'm really in pain.' She'd twisted her knee — she was pretty much on crutches for the rest of the shoot.'' Ledger thinks it over. ''And I felt I always had to look after her after that.''

They never made any firm decision about having kids: ''We just fell very deeply into one another's arms. Our bodies definitely made those decisions for us. I mean, the second you acknowledge it as a possibility, the body just inevitably hits a switch and it happens.'' They conceived outside Sydney, in a resort called Byron Bay, a place favored by surfers and travelers seeking enlightenment. ''It's very romantic,'' he says. ''It's very spiritual. There are a lot of hippies out there.''

Alter Williams gave birth, the Brooklyn neighbors started turning up with casserole dishes. ''It was very sweet,'' says Ledger. ''I made a big feast for them, we got to know each other.''

I ask Ledger how old his own father was when he was born. ''Um... good question. Hmm! I'm pretty sure my dad was the same age I was.''

Right now, career decisions are on hold. Candy, the Aussie film in which he plays a heroin addict, opens in April. Then what? ''I've had a year off,'' he says. ''If my agent had his way, I'd be working every fucking day of my life.'' He's being careful. ''Because in this industry, interest in you comes in waves, it's so tidal. And so I don't really want to jump on the first wave that comes along.''

Award season has ended now, The system, which Ledger calls ''the monster,'' follows the political model; you've got to go campaigning. For Ledger it's been a tough trail. He wins the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor but doesn't show up to collect the prize — he's back in Australia, where a paparazzi shoots him with a water pistol, and it's international news. Every Hollywood week seems to bring another bungle. He delivers a speech at the Screen Actors Guild Awards that seems to mock Brokeback's content. But if you know Ledger, what he's making fun of is the award-speech genre itself. Then he announces that George Clooney deserves the same Best Supporting Actor award that Jake Gyllenhaal is nominated for. Word circulates that Ledger is a bad boy — not, perhaps, in the good way voters like. But all of this is honorable, Many stars pocket the benefits of saying they're rebellious, claiming they dislike the system, at no cost to themselves. Ledger really seems not to know any way to act but as himself — he's still playing to his own standard of goofball, prickly honesty. I remember the last thing he said on the phone: ''It's not that hard to understand, right? I'd like to be responsible for my own actions. If you're gonna paint a picture, you want to pick the colors yourself, and where and how they go.''

And there was the moment we got up from lunch. When he was twenty, Ledger had felt like a soda bottle, just an item to be marketed. But as he stood, Ledger realized he could do with a drink. He flagged a waitress: ''I wouldn't mind a Coke — could I get a Coca-Cola?'' She said they were out.

Isn't that the way it goes? You give in to the system, just a little, and you still walk outside the restaurant thirsty.