We’re Havin’ a Heath Wave

The screen’s latest Australian, Heath Ledger, his head hidden beneath a medieval knight’s helmet and visor, his body bolted into plat armor, sits atop his steed in the blistering sun here on the back lot of Barrandov Studios in the hills above Prague. Barrandov was built by the family of Czech president Vaclav Havel in the 1930’s, and its sad and illustrious history includes its utilization by German propagandist director Leni Riefenstahl during World War II. Today it is often rented by American producers, enticed here as much for budgetary concerns as aesthetic ones. A Knights Tale, budgeted at around $45 million, would have cost Columbia Pictures twice that if it had been made on a lot in Hollywood.

Ledger is no cut-rate talent, however, having crossed over into the million-dollar-per-film category. “He’s the real thing,” says Amy Pascal, chairman of Columbia Pictures. Bowled over by the dailies she saw of his performance as Mel Gibson’s son in The Patriot, she gambled that audiences would be clamoring to see more of the 21-year-old swashbuckler, and signed off on him for the starring role in A Knights Tale – suggested by one of the stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – over many bigger names who were campaigning for the part. Brian Helgeland, who won a screenwritting Oscar along with Curtis Hanson for L.A. Confidential, is a Knights Tale’s writer and director. “When Heath smiles, it’s Errol Flynn,” says Helgeland, summing up much of newcomer Ledger’s old-fashioned appeal. “Once every 50 years a guy like that comes along. For his age, Heath has an incredible manliness about him.” Indeed, few, if any, of the latest batch of dollish bad-boy idols can math Ledger’s effortless ability to convey masculine ease on-screen.

Inside the set’s elaborate jousting arena – which is the size of two football fields – Ledger takes a practice run on his mount. Thundering toward his opponent, with clouds of dirt siwrling about the horses flanks, he handles the 2,000-pound animal with the expertise he developed on the set of The Patriot, which called for him to ride along side Gibson while at the same time shooting a Revolunitary War rifle with historical authenticity. “Sounds like he’s getting even more…antiquidated,” says Kentucky gun-maker Frank House, who built the long rifles for The Patriot and coached the cast on how to use them. “Heath wasn’t no dandy, sissy actor. There wasn’t none of that spoiled-brat stuff. He was very intense and serious. Very studious. Very…contained.”

Hundreds of Czech extras, hanging rapt from the arena’s rafters, watch the proceedings below them. The crew mills about setting up dolly shot of the joust as the rest of the cast kills time listening to music, taking photographs, or laughing at the latest dirty joke making the rounds. Mark Addy, the sweet, plump stripper in the Full Monty, who protrays one of Ledger’s Varlets in the film, and fellow Brit Rufus Sewell the films villian, compare notes regarding their favorite Prague restaurants. Sewell has been on location for seven weeks now but has yet to film a scene. “It’s one of the finest experiences of not working with an actor I’ve ever had,” he says when I asked him about the young leading man. “Pseuds Corner” in Private Eye, where the satirical English fornightly collect fatuous comments, “but the camera just relaxes on him. When the camera hits certain people you can feel it sort of go, ‘Ah, that’s O.K. We’re in good hands here.’ Not many people have that. It makes a star.”

“You can tell this is not Heath’s life,” says Shannyn Sossamon, Ledger’s love interest in the film. It is certainly not hers. Never haing acted before, she was discvored spinning records at Gwyneth Paltrow’s last birthday party. “Because I D.J. in L.A. I’ve seen a lot of ‘actory’ types,” she says the exotically beautifull hoyden, whose first purchase in Prague, after having saved up her per-diem money, was a new turntable. “Heath is not actory.”

“I’ve never met an ator who is actory,” counters Paul Bettany, putting down a copy of Martin Amis’s Experience. Bettany, who plays a comically eloquent Geoffrey Chaucer in the movie, just finished protraying a serial killer in the film adaptations of Amis’s Dead Babies. “That’s always seemed to me to be an apocryphal concept. I mean, I’ve met actors who are wankers, but I’ve met accountants who are wankers, too. I do agree, though, that Heath is a joy to be around… [His relaxation] comes with being given an enormous amount of confidence at a young age. There’s a certain grace in being given a lot of pressure. You’ve got no choice except to be relaxed. You don’t have to fight for anything when so many people are putting that much faith in you. A transformation occurs that has its own volition.” “Mark, darling!” the first assistant director loudly trills. Is this a fey attempt to get Addy into place for the upcoming take? Not at all. It is code the crew has cooked up for “Rolling!” since Ledger’s massive horse, much more of a moviemaking veteran that its rider, becomes too frisky when it hears the normal warning.

The set hushes.

“Action!” Helgeland howls.

The soundman is attempting to record only the hooves pounding against the areana’s floor, so the extras have been instructed to mine their enthusiasm, as if they were in a Cecil B. DeMille pre-talkie extravaganza. Ledger’s jousting lance breaks against his opponen’ts breastplate right on cue. The extras erupt with silent fervor. “Aaaaannnd … cut!” shouts Helgeland. Ledger trots his horse over to the playback monitor and pries the helmet from his head, Hollywood’s newest visage is revealed, gleaming with seat in the late-afternoon light. Overhearing Addy and Sewell resume their epicurean discussion, Ledger bums a cigarette and offers a recommendation of his own. “And beer here is 20 cents a pint,” he says.

He dismounts and clangs toward the monitor. He carefully studies his jousting technique. A crew member with 40 years’ experience leans in and whispers, “I’ve seen them come and seen them go, and this kid’s own damn movie. It really doesn’t matter how elaborate the set is or how talented the oterh actors are – in every frame the great ones are always starring in their own private film. It’s got nothing to do with being selfish. They just can’t help it.”

Ledger, after a quick final puff, mounts his horse and reins it in for one more take. Before sliding his helmet back on his head, he spots Sossamon in the crowd and flashes her an Errol Flynn.

“Mark, darling!”

He snaps his visor shut.

Only eyes are visible.

“Aaaaannnnd… action!”

Yes, he’s sexy – not traditionally handsome, but there is something there in those eyes of his. They can get incredibly compassionate,” says director Shekhar Kapur, who furnished the third bolt of lighting to srtike Ledger’s nascent career when he cast him as the lead in his long-awaited follow-up to Elizabeth, a remake of Zoltan Korda’s 1939 classic, The Four Feather. Again he will play a young man having to prove his vcalor a young man having to prove his valor in a costume epic when he goes straight from filming A Knight’s Tale to North Africa and England to being work for Kapur. Far-flung sets have become the actor’s home. (“Suitcases,” he replies when asked where he lives.) “You can see that Heath’s a person who understands a bit more about life – and thought a bit more about it – than just being a kid with and interesting face,” says Kapur.

Ledger, his eyes void of compassion as they ponder a passing party boat full of drunk German teenagers, orders a vodka tonic on the terrace of the Kampa Park restaurant on the bank of Prague’s Vltava River. He does up the third button of his suit jacket and turns up his collar. “That’s my idea of hell,” he says, poiting with is half-smoked Camel Light toward the teenagers. When he was 16, he and his closet friend, Trevor DiCarlo (who’s staying with him this summer in Prague), jumped into a car and headed for Sydney from their hometown of Perth. Usally a five-day drive over 2,500 miles of barren landscape, it tooke them three. “I had 69 cents in my bank account. And just enough cash from my folks to get across the country,” he says, covering his lap with one of the tasseled wool blankets the restaurant furnishes for those unaccustomed to the Czech night air. By 19 – with two television series and the Australian art-house hit Two Hands behind him – he had landed in Los Angeles, where he was soon cast as the lead in 10 Things I Hate About You, the 1999 teen movie lossely based on Shakspeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, for which he received a little less than $100,000. Then things slowed down dramatically. He was offered teen movie after teen movie, but he turned them all down. “I want to keep that all my life – the choice to say no,” he says . “I’m in control of my life, not anyone in Hollywood…. I only do this because I’m having fun. The day I stop having fun, I’ll just walk away. I wasn’t going to have fun doing a teen movie again…. I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. I don’t. I don’t even want to spend the rest of my youth doing this in this industry. There’s so much more I want to discover.”

He was almost forced to make some of those discoveries before he was cast as Gabriel Martin in The Patriot. It had been more than a year since he worked in 10 Things I Hate About You, and he was flat broke. “I was hungry at times. It was my last hope. If I didn’t get the part, I was going to go back home. I had nothing. No money. No nothing….At one point, I didn’t even want to read the script and go in and meet with them. I had come so close to so many great projects that I just had the rub taken out of me. But I went in anyway and read for the director, Roland Emmerich, and the producer, Dean Devlin, and some other people. I had two scenes to read, and was halfway through the second scene and just stopped. I said, ‘I’m sorry. This is shit. I’m waisting your time. But, more importantly I’m waisting mine.’ I was so in the dumps I just didn’t give a shit. I stood up and walked out. But they must have been a little curious about my behavior, because I ended up getting called back.”

It was down to Heath and one other fellow,” says Mel Gibson. (It is rumored that Ryan Phillippe was the second contender.) “At first Roland wanted me to decide but I couldn’t,” Gibson continues. “So I told him that he was the director. He should make the decision, and I would be happy with it. And I was. Heath possesses an unlikely combination: he has incredible presence, yet he has no fucking pretensions. He’s much more grounded than I was at that age, when it all started happening for me. I think he’ll handle it better than I did.”

Robert Rodat, the screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot, has his own take on the dichotomy Gibson is getting at. “We didn’t want the character of Gabriel to be a boy,” he says. “We wanted him to be someone stepping from the dry stone of childhood to the slippery rock of adulthood. We wanted him to be straddling that line.”

“Heath did blow that first audition,” remembers Emmerich, whose directing credits include Independence Day and Godzilla. “But you felt in the room, when he walked in, that everybody was kind of immediately staightening up and saying, ‘Who is this guy?’ … And he has quite an effect on women. Dean and I had a lot of women in our company. There was this thing going on with all the women rooting for Heath. Everyone of them came into my office and said, ‘Please cast Heath!’ I’d go, ‘What’s wrong with you girls? It’s about acting first of all.’ But they were in love with him.” (As his career has taken off, his private life has suffered. Having broken up with his girlfriend, Ledger is now single.)

“It was a very difficult part to cast,” Devlin continues. “We needed someone who could go toe-to toe with Mel Gibson…. On the first day of shooting, Heath was a little shaky. But by the second day he was slugging it out with Mel scene for scene. It was interesting to watch.”

“In order not to hold a frame with someone, you have to be intimidated by them,” says Ledger. “Mel is so easy to be comforable with. That first day we started shooing – It’s weird – I hadn’t been in front of a camera for over a year, and there I was with Mel Gibson…. But he helped me with every scene I did with him. It wasn’t that he sat me down and said, Hey, kid, why don’t you try this or try that. There’s a certain warmth about him. It’s subtexual, how he teaches you. Of course, it all comes down to being willing to be taught.” Ledger looks up at Prague’s moonlit Charles Bridge, its stautes of grim-faced saints with their grimy backs turned to him. He lights another cigarette. “The love story in the film is really between that father and son,” he says.

Heath Andrew Ledger grew up in the racetrack pits of Western Australia. “I was very involded in motor sport and speedway racing,” says his father, 50-year-old Kim Ledger, who now runs an assortment of engineering business in Perth. “Heath was into go-karts for a certain time and won a few go-kart titles. So I was sort of expecting him to take that up. He was really good at field hockey as well. So you get all these pre-determined ideas. I thought he was going to be on the Olympic field-hockey team this year.”

Ledger smiles at his father’s dreams. “When I was growing up, yeah, my dad put a field-hockey stick in my hand,” he says, but adds that in spite of his upbringing he’s never had the slightest interest in what’s uunder the hood of an automobile of any stripe. “I only recently bought my first muscle car,” he says, a bit embarrassed by the purchase. “A 1970 Ford Mustang Grande. This one is full beefcake. Bad-ass black. I saw it and drove it and felt like a man. I also have a Land Rover just to get around in. That’s my lesbian car,” he deadpans. “It’s odd, that’s why I don’t like telling people I played field hockey. It’s real big in Australia for guys. But I say I played in America, and everybody goes, ‘Oh, you girl!’” he says, laughing. “I went to Guildfor Grammar back in Perth. It was kind of like a military school. If you did cadets, you had to wear a uniform. But I didn’t want to fight. I thought it was strange that they were teaching kids to shoot automatic weapons at 16. If you didn’t do that they made you play sports. So I played a lot of field hockey…. And cricket. And Austalian-rules football. But I played them all just to get out of cadets. I mean, who wants to shoot an automatic rifle? What the fuck was I going to use that for?”

“Heath doesn’t wan to squash an ant,” says his father. “He worries about everything from an insect dying onward. He’s very soft inside…. We’re the only father son I know who hug and roll around on the floor of the airport when we meet. We’re crazy, mate. We’re huggy, touchy people.”

Ledger’s father and his mother, Sally, ceased such activity when Heath was 10. “The point I got to very quickly, after my parent’s divorce, was to realize that they were just humans,” he says. “It wasn’t the death of something, but the birth of something else. What I’ve always looked for is redirection of energy and emotion, and maybe the thrust of that started there.” Ledger’s favorite saying is how he likes to “break things down” when life becomes too complicated or painful. That compartmentalization must have started when his family morphed from being a single unit into a happily segmented one. His mother, a sometime French tutor, quickly remarreid after the divorce and had a daughter, Ash-leigh, who is 11. His father has a three-year-old, Olivia, with a longtime girlfriend.

“I think I’ve bred another one, too, out there somewhere,” Kim Ledger says rather sheepishly, then turns his attention back to his son. “Ever played chess with Heath?” he asks. “He’s always five moves ahead of everybody. Though he’s fairly laid-back about things, he’s also pretty streetwise…. He does seem to have a destiny that he’s in charge of. Once I picked him up from his Rock Eisteddfod rehearsal. We wree lying in bed about one o’clock in the morning. Heath is very much into ark also. He’s an arty boy. He had some of his special abstract art pinned on the walls of his room and on the ceiling. We’d been talking for about half an hour. We’d often talk like that. I finally told him – he was about 14 or 15 – he was going to haveto get some sleep because he has school in the morning. He said to me, ‘Well, Dad, you’re going to have to get used to this. Because this is what I’m going to be. I’m going to be very good at it. And I’m really going to enjoy it.’ I’ve always told him, you see, that he couldn’t be good at anythign unless he enjoyed it 150 percent.”

“They never thought I was going to make it here,” says Ledger of America. “I mean, phycially get here. One reason is that the work I did on TV in Australia was crap. My mom and dad were the first to laugh about it.”

“His big break was a show called Sweat,” recalls his father. “It was about young Olympic hopefuls. He had a choice of two roles. One was the swimmer and the other was the gay bicyclist. I was thinking to myself, Yeah, he’ll choose the swimmer! I used to be a swimmer when I was younger. This’ll be great! But then he told me he chose the gay role. I went, ‘Oh God… well, O.K.’ But his response to that was ‘Look, Dad, this is more of an acting role. So if I want to get some sort of recognition, that’s the one I should be doing.’ He wasn’t fazed by any of the other stuff. But his father was a little… in the back of you mind, you sort of think… I mean, well, if Heath ended up gay in his life, I’d still love him as much as I do right now.”

"It wasn't that painfull to leave and head for Sydney," says Ledger. "Not at that age. No matter how good your family life is, you just want out. It's always been like that for me. I've always kept going going going going going.... I'm sure my parents were really conerned, but they were wise enough not to show it to me too much. They knew they were not going to stop me. They knew i was going to go. They're amazing. They really just fucking let me fly!" Ledger breaks into one of those smiles that can fill a scene as easily as one of the best of Tom Cruise's. "My dad loves being a father. He has to be a father, which I love and hate. I guess it started when I left home, but our relationship went from being best friends. I guess that comes from understanding him as an adult now that I'm an adult. It's amazing when you come to accept each other's mistakes and let each other make them." He shakes his head. "It's amazing," he says quietly.

"Heath took off at a very early age," says Kim Ledger, just as quietly. "He's barely been home since then. It broke my heart. We spent our life together playing sports. I'd run him around to this and that. You participate [as a parent] in everything they do. So when they take off, it's like ... well ... it's like a divorce .... But I've always been a person who believes that people who break kids' spirits should be jailed. It should be a capital offense. We all have our individual spirits."

Rock Eisteddfod?

"It's a nationwide high-school competition," says Ledger. "It's a dance thing. You get about 60 or 80 students. You have to create an eight-minute dance piece to a topic you've picked. You have to create your own set and costumes. And you've got a month or two to do it. Usally a lot of girls' schools do it. We were the fist all-guys school to ever do it. Our topic was fashion," he says with an actory aplomb that could send his leading lady reeling. "It was pretty cheesy. But we won the competition. I choreographed the whoole thing. Sixty male students - all farmers at a military school- who had never danced before. We were doing it just to get out of school and go to the competition so we could meet all those girls. We wnet through all the different aspects of fashion. It was cool, man. These kids had never danced before and didn't think they could do it. I remember the first meeitng we had. All of them were kind of surly, going, 'Fuck this. I'm not gonna dance.' I had to literally get up in front of all these surly guys and put on a song and just dance. By the end, when they won the competition, they were fucking blown away by it. For starters, that they could simply win something, but also that they could dance. I guess it was like a Gene Kelly movie. Like Summer Stock."

You might thing that Ledger's cinematic hero would be Steve McQueen or Paul Newman or Marlon Brando or James Dean. "No, it all comes from my love of Kelly, I think he's just awesome. It was more or less the partnership between him and Judy Garland that I liked. He nurtured her and had her under his arm," he says, miming having a phantom Garland in a gentle headlock. He pats her invisible head. "I really liked that. There was somthing so magical about Gene Kelly's films. It was moviemaking! They built those amazing sets! They danced and sang!" He pauses, trying to decide wether he should admit something or not. "Actually, I have a pair of tap-dancing shoes," he says. "I was living on Waverly Place in Greenwich Village for about six months, and one day i went to Capezio's and bought myself some shoes. I haven't had a lesson yet. Like everything else, I'm self taught. I do it by myself in my apartment." Lighting his last cigarette, he has to laugh at the image of himself privately step-ball-changing in front of his mirror. "God! Doesn't that sound lonely?" he asks, taking a long slow drag.

Ledger has never bothered with acting lessons, either. "I don't have a method to my madness.... For me, acting is more about self-exploration. I've learned a lot about myself in order to learn about the craft. How many kings can you find to play a king? You can't find them. When I act, I look at it as if I'm a mixing board in a sound studio. The patter on the board is me. When i play a character, I go, 'I'll turn these knobs down and these ones up.' But in order to do that i have to know myself. I have to know myself like an instrument. I'm just a saxophone," he says, shrugging. "I've always been very big on self-exploration and answering my own questions. For so many, it's hell growing up. But I guess I'm blessed. I've really enjoyed it. I don't let a lot get to me. I really don't. As I keep saying, I break everything down. Everything. I look up at those stars," he says, pointing at the sky about the Vltava River, "and go, 'There's no explanation for us to be here.' When anything is blocking my head or there's worry in my life, I just - whoosh - go sit on Mars or something and look back here at Earth. All you can see is this tiny speck. You don't see the fear. You don't see the pain. You don't see the movie industry. You don't see this interview. You don't see thought. It's just one solid speck. Then nothing really matters. It just doesn't."

'Aaaannnd ... cut!"

Ledger pulls off his helmet and hands it to the costume assistant. Scowling, he trudges over to the playback monitor to watch the sword fight hei character, Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein, has just won. Richard Greatrex, A Knights Tale's director of photography, whose credits include Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love, readies his crew for the fights next take. "I met Heath once before. I'd shot his sceen test for a Miramax film called Calcio, which is the Italian word for football. It was about an English football fan who ends up in Sardinia. The film got canceled at the last minute because Harvey Weinstein [Miramax's co-chairman] didn't like Heath. The director and Harvey had quite a disagreement about him, and the thing fell apart only a week before we were to start shooting. I think Harvey must be kicking himself now, considering all the buzz about the boy." (Weinstein, through a spokesman, claims that he doesn't recall such a film.) In fact, Miramax, along with Paramount, is producing Ledger's next vehicle, The Four Feathers. Ledger, for his part, refuse to answer - but does smile knowingly - when he's asked if he "stuck it to Weinstien" during the salary negotiations for The Four Feathers, considering the producer' past failure to appreciate his talent. (Sources say Ledger will cross the $2 million threshold)

Greatrex continues:"I spoke to director Gillian Armstrong just before I came to Prague, and she was raving about Heath... He certainly knows his way around the set. He knows where his body lies in the space very well. He understands the 3-D-ness of movie acting. He's very skilled at that." A giant shadow falls ominously across the sword-fight ring. "Oh, God! Look at those dark clouds rolling up."

Ledger emerges from the tent where the playback monitor is now stationed. He is still scowling. The costume assistant attempts to loosent a bit of the armor on his biceps, for he is getting badly bruised with each two-handed swing of his sword. "I wasn't graceful enough," he growls, addressing what he just saw on the monitoy. "Any fool can fight. I have to find a way to be more graceful." He is abel to dismiss the hovering assitstant by quietly thanking her. Groaning at the weight of his armor, he slips his helmet back on. Once again he lifts his sword, ready for another morning of dolly shots and shouting extras and a close-up or two of his angry eyes, grouted beneath his visor.

By lunch the swordplay is finised. Perspiring heavily, Ledger removed his armor and shirt until he is wearing only his leath leggings. He puts a Janis Joplin CD into his boom box. On a hillside next to his trailer, he attempts to stretch his sore body to Joplin's singing. (The day before, in a better mood, he stretched to the soothing tones of Tracy Chapman.) Finally sitting down to a plate of meat loaf and potates- his curls blowing in the rising wind- he's asked if Heath is a shortened version of Heathcliff. "No, just Heath. But I do have an older sister named Kathy," he says. "Well, Kate."

There is a thunderclap, and a downpour erupts. The cast and crew head for cover. Their star stays put. He slips Joplin from the boom box and slides the Doors in. "Riders on the Storm" begins its own distant rumble. Ledger turns his face to the rain and heads up the hill. The Czech sky is roiling. "Into this world we're thrown." The stones have become slippery. Ledger picks up a few and heaves them toward the heavens. Ray Manzarek;s keyboard gets his feet tapping. A rock 'n' roll Gene Kelly, he's found the grace he misplaced this morning and, grinning from ear to ear, stomps about in one puddle after another. Lighting flashes. He ignores it and keeps dancing.

Heath Leno and Quotes!!!
http://www.stas.net/heath/index.html Heath Baby ***** Heath Ledgers June/2000 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Jay Leno: He's starring opposite Mel Gibson in the new movie which opens tomorrow, "The Patriot." Please welcome Heath Ledger. (Audience cheers & applause) (Jay walks to over to meet him. He leans over while shaking Heath's hand) Jay Leno: Hi Lad, good to see you. Heath: Good to see you. (They sit down) Jay Leno: Hey, thanks for coming. Heath : No, thank you for inviting me. Jay: I knew you flew a long way. I got the plane ticket today. I said, "how much is this?" Where did you come from? Heath: Prague Jay Leno: Prague? Heath: Yeah, I came in, like, 3 days ago. Jay Leno: Are you doing a film over there? Heath: Yeah, I'm doing a movie called "A Knights Tale," which is a comedy on jousting. (Giggles) Jay Leno: Jousting, you know jousting comedies are huge in America now. People can't get enough of them. Jay Leno: What is Prague like? Heath: Uh, it's beautiful. It's one of the only cities preserved from world war II. It wasn't bombed. You know, there's a lot of buildings from the 9th century. Beers are 20 cents a pop. Jay Leno: Beer 20 cents a pop? Heath: Yep! Jay Leno: So combine that with the buildings from the 9th century and you got quite the weekend. (Laughter) Heath: Yeah! ( Jay reaches under his desk and holds up the July/2000 issue of Vanity Fair) Jay Leno: Hey, this is pretty cool. The cover... Have you seen this? (Heath shakes his head no) Jay Leno: You haven't seen this. That's pretty cool. (Heath leans over to get a better look at the magazine) Heath: You can see my underwear! Jay Leno: It's What? Heath: I haven't seen -- Jay Leno: Oh, you can see your underwear. Yeah. Heath: That's embarrassing. Jay Leno: Sears, it says Sears Young Men Shop on here. (Referring to the underwear) Heath: Kmart. Jay Leno: Is it odd to see your face on a magazine? Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Is this your first American magazine cover? Heath: Yeah, that's my first American cover. Yeah. Jay Leno: Are you comfortable. You like like your comfortable. You look like your drunk actually. (He's referring to the Heath's picture on the cover of Vanity Fair) Heath: I was in Prague. Jay Leno: Was this in Prague. 20 cents a beer, sure. That explains it. Jay Leno: Now your from wha -- Where are you from in Australia? Heath Ledger: I grew up in Perth, western Australia. Jay Leno: Okay. (Audience member cheers) (Heath looking out into the audience) Heath: Your from Perth?? Jay Leno: We have a huge Perth crowd. Jay Leno: I mean rural. Where were you, in the city? Were you -- Heath: Yeah, in the city, on the beach, yeah. Jay Leno: Right on the beach? Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Now I read in the article that you have or used to have a pet kangaroo? Heath: Yeah, well my dad had a pet kangaroo, like a year ago. (Giggling!) Jay Leno: Can you keep kangaroos as pets? 'cause I don't know? Heath: I didn't think you could but he had one. (Giggling, again!) Jay Leno: Do they come when you call them? Heath: Yeah. Yeah. Jay Leno: What do you call a pet kangaroo? Heath: Poppy. Jay Leno: "Poppy, here Poppy." I mean, does it bound around the house? Heath: Well a couple of times it apparently hopped over the fence and ran through the neighbourhood. They had to catch it and bring it home. I don't know. It used to run with the dog. Play with the kid. Jay Leno: When does he -- Does he sleep in the house or outside? Heath: He slept outside. Um, we used to get like, well um I didn't, my dad got it like a sack. Like a bag and hung it from the balcony and we would just push it in it, and it would swing in there all night. Jay Leno: Like a giant cub. Dot he neighbours know this? I assume this is not an apartment you live in. Heath: I don't know if they knew about it. Jay Leno: You wouldn't know if your neighbour had a pet kangaroo sleeping in a pouch. Jay Leno: So, you left home to pursue acting at what age? Heath: 16, 17. Jay Leno: How old are you now, 21? Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Wow, that's pretty good. You left at 16? Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Wow, where did you go? Did you go into Sidney or something? Heath: Um, Yeah. I drove to Sydney from Perth, which is like New york to L.A., I guess. Jay Leno: That's a nice drive. Heath: It was a nice drive. (Both Jay and Heath are giggling) Heath: Except, for one flat road with nothing in between. It's just you know really -- You know really fun. You know it was more like a pursuit of life, I guess. Jay Leno: Did you go by yourself? Did you bring friends? Heath: No, I drove with Trevor. My best mate. He came along with me. Jay Leno: Trevor (Imitating Heath's accent) Heath: Trevor. Yeah you met Trevor back there. Jay Leno: Oh, that was Trevor back there. Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Oh, he was the drunk guy. (Laughing) Heath: Yeah, Yeah the drunk guy. (Laughing) Jay Leno: Now are you a car guy? Your dad, I read, somewhere that your dad's a car guy. Heath: Yeah. Yeah, a big car guy. He's been in the racing industry for like 30 years. Jay Leno: Oh, I should have him on the show? Heath: Yeah, you should. He's much more interesting. Jay Leno: Are you like a muscle car guy? Sports car guy or what? Heath: I got a '97 Mustang Al Grande. And it's -- Jay Leno: 1997 Mustang Al Grande -- Now see here, that would be like a coffee drink. Heath: Startbucks car. Jay Leno: That would be like, something like that. Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Do you have it here or in Australia? Heath: Yeah, it's here. Yeah, It's been here in hospital for about 8 months and I've drove it for about 10 days, so -- Jay Leno: Your cars been in hospital? Heath: Yeah. (Laughs) Jay Leno: Yeah, see we would call that a garage. (Laughs) Heath: It's an Aussie thing. Jay Leno: It's an Aussie thing. It's an Aussie thing. Heath: Yeah. Jay Leno: Now a '70 Mu -- Isn't that like what Mel drove in Mad Max? Heath: Similar, yeah. Jay Leno: Similar? Oh, now that would be a cool car to have -- Heath: Yeah, it is. It looks like that. Jay Leno: -- to drive around. Heath: But it's here. Jay Leno: Tell us about "The Patriot." He co-stars with you. Mel plays your -- Heath: I co-star with him. Jay Leno: Now, he plays you great grandfather in this -- Heath: dad. Jay Leno: I know. I like to give Mel -- He's your dad, and the American accent, I didn't know you were from -- You were really good -- Heath: Uh, I don't know? Jay Leno: -- as an American. Heath: I can hear my own accent in the -- Jay Leno: Oh, really. I couldn't. Heath: Yeah, Yeah. Jay Leno: Now, he's also -- Um, Mel grew up in, I know Australia. Were you a fan of his? Did you watch his movies? Heath: Uh, yeah. I think everyone is. Yeah, I grew up watching like Gliply and all the Mad Max shows and stuff like that. Yeah, I was a huge fan of his. And yeah, of course Lethal Weapon. You worked with him (Pointing to Rene Russo who's seated right beside him). Awesome! He's amazing and I learned so much from him. I mean, professionally and socially especially. He, uh -- the way he presents himself. Uh, professionally it's just remarkable. I mean, he walks to the beat of life in such a wonderful fashion. Which uh, and it really rubbed off on me, and um, I was honoured really. Jay Leno: Now, tell us about this scene. The scene were going to see here. What is it about? Heath: I guess this is where I'm taking off to, uh, join up -- (Starts to giggle when the tv surprisingly begins to rise between Jay and himself). (Audience laughs) Jay Leno: Don't be frightened lad. Heath: Ahhhh (As he grabs the chair pretending to be frightened) Jay Leno: Get Trevor, He's having a seizure. Heath: Yeah Trevor, come on -- uh. Jay Leno: Those 20 cent beers in Prague are starting to hit you now. Heath: Yeah! Hey! Jay Leno: Just starting to get to you again, now. Heath: I'm taking off to join up with the continentals and my dad says no don't go and I say look I'm going to go regardless and so I am. Jay Leno: And boy, this is a beautiful looking movie. Heath: Kayla Desonal shot it and he's a genius. Jay Leno: It's wonderful. Here's a scene from "The Patriot." (Show movie clip) Jay Leno: Well, congratulations. Terrific film. Heath: Thank you. Jay Leno: Terrific film and of course the cover of Vanity Fair. That's very cool. That's great as well. It's nice to meet people before they become huge stars. Heath: Thank you. Jay Leno: You're a nice young man. I hope you do well. (Jay shakes Heath's hand) Jay Leno: Congratulations on all your successes. Heath: Thank you. Jay Leno: Heath Ledger. Be right back with Lara Fabian. THE HEATH IS ON from NW You watched the Oscars at the NW party in Sydney - did you wish you were in LA, amongst the glitz and glamour? I've been living there for three years, so I was glad I wasn't there. It's only glitzed and glammed because it's broadcast to billions of people around the world. If it wasn't broadcast to so many countries the actors would turn up in jeans. Are you a Hollywood kind of guy? I was when I first got there, because it was novel and fun, and it was like "wow." Then it becomes boring and blatant. I just do my own thing, you know? You have to create a lifestyle for yourself, schedules, plans, things to do with friends. Washing. Do you have a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles? People just love to bash LA. People say it's so pretentious, so arrogant, so this and that. Buts it's truly a wonderful place. You don't have to go to the places where that stuff goes on. You don't have to go to Beverly Hills, you don't have to go to the parties. You can live up in the Lower Canyon and live such a perfectly healthy, beautiful, fun life with all your friends. You can drive two hours one way and be at the Joshua Tree desert, two hours one way you're skiing at Big Bear. Sure, it can get full-on and that's why it's good to get out. But it's too easy just to say, "Nup, I hate it. I'm not living there anymore." Where are you living now? Well, actually I'm in New York now. I love the city, so I thought, why not? I'll live here for a while. Would you ever coming back to Australia, say for a role in the next "Star Wars" movie? F*ck, no way would I do "Star Wars" in a million years! I don't want to be part of an advertisement scheme for computer games, and that's all it is. The original ones? Sure, they were great, I grew up on them, but that last one was appalling. I hated it. How was that whole racer thing? You can buy that whole scene on a video game. It was such a marketing ploy. It made me sick. So you're not the next Anakin Skywalker then... It would be so boring. You'd work eight months in front of a blue screen, talking to a dot. Ewan MacGregor hated it. He was bored shitless. I'm sure they all were. It's not really about that at the end of the day. IT's about how much fun you have and if it's a good movie. What are good movies to you? I love good scripts. "Being John Malkovich," "American Beauty," "Magnolia." Those three have stood out lately. And I liked "The Cedar House Rules." I like Tobey Maguire. I think he's an amazing actor. Do you get a ton of teen movies? I did after "10 Things I Hate About You." That's why I sat around on my arse for a year saying no to teen stuff. Because I didn't really want to take that avenue. What are the differences between a big studio film like "The Patriot" and an independent Australian film like "Two Hands?" Studios in America have more money, more film and more time. That's basically it. There are a lot of physical differences, but it's mainly money. What was your physical preparation for your role in "The Patriot?" We did a lot of horse-riding and musket-shooting. I'd done a bit of riding before, so that wasn't too hard. But I'd never shot a musket before. Mel Gibson said you were "shit scared" prior to filming. Were you? Yeah, I was shit scared. It was my first big-budget movie and there are a lot of pressures that come along with that. Anyone would be scared in that position. But it took me about a week, and I was pretty relaxed. Mel's always joking, he's very light-humoured all the time and constantly telling jokes. The director and producer were also really nice people, and it was never a tense shoot. Describe the shoot. Long, educational, tiring, but a lot of fun. Tell me about the 17th century love scene you did. I spend a night at my girlfriend's house and they only have one bed for me to sleep, and that's hers. Things weren't very liberal back then, of course. What happened was they stitched me up in this big wheat bag, right up to my chin, so that just my head was showing. That's it, it's a really cute situation. How did you relate to the father/son relationship in the movie? Every kid gets to an age where they feel they have their own opinions and morals. They go out and pursue them, and they get burnt on half of them and the others may be right. I guess I related to it in that respect. You're doing another period piece, "A Knight's Tale" - what's that about? Nothing interested me about doing another period piece, but the script was really good. That's what it comes down to for me. I play a young man who wants to become a jousting competitor, but he can't because he's not of royal blood or knight status. So he forges papers and competes. There's a few little twists and turns, of course, and a lot of swordplay. I'm about to go into 77 days of filming with three days off. How do you feel going into a movie? Excited, but anxious to get it done. The best part of making a movie is when it's finished. During filming, I feel like the night before and exam - you have to keep fresh and you don't want to study too hard, otherwise it will clog your head for the next morning... When you finally finish, all the knots loosen up from your back. Pip Harry N E W S S T A N D HEATH BAR from if Magazine Don’t expect to see a lot of Heath Ledger. True he is one of the latest slews of “hot young things” circling the gray skies of Los Angeles, with last year’s 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU catapulting the 21-year-old Ledger into the star youth market. But Ledger makes it clear he is not a teenager anymore and you won’t be seeing him play one again. “I don’t really think I would enjoy doing any more of that,” says Ledger. “I’ve done one and I had fun with it. I loved working with the people I worked with and I think it turned out fine. It was a great little flick. I just decided to put my stakes a lot higher and put myself in a class with actors I probably shouldn’t have been with.” He did just that working with Mel Gibson as his son on THE PATRIOT, the new epic film by Producer Dean Devlin and Director Roland Emmerich. Ledger says he had a blast working the 102 day shoot and quickly learned a lot from Gibson who he says, " ... put me at ease.” “He’s Mad Max,” muses Ledger. “He pleasantly surprised me because for someone who is like a superstar he’s just a normal level guy, a gentleman. He gives everyone a piece of his time. Professionally and socially I learned a lot from him. One thing I learned was about relaxing on set. He keeps his head very clear. He’s constantly joking on set and laughing right up until – action, then poof he’s right there.” For now Ledger is holding out for the more mature roles. The roles that will set him apart from the others. He would rather starve than be cast in BOYS AND GIRLS part II or 10 THINGS I STILL HATE ABOUT YOU. “I want to read really great scripts,” enthuses the gum-chewing Ledger. “I get excited when I read really great work. I love what I do and it’s a passion of mine. Therefore I don’t think I would be happy doing anything I wasn’t in love with. I just would rather not. I’ve got other things I can do.” What he has on his plate now is finishing shooting for A KNIGHT’S TALE which he describes as “borderline Monty Python”, in which he co-stars with Mark Addy. And up next for the 6-foot-2-inch actor is FOUR FEATHERS scheduled to shoot in Morocco this fall. Ledger calls this version a “fresh adaptation of the book.” And “no”, he says, he hasn’t seen the other movie and doesn’t plan on it. After his big break with 10 THINGS, and with the help of his best friend/agent, Ledger stayed focused on what HE wanted to do and he didn’t succumb to projects he just couldn’t sink his heart into, regardless of the pay, which has been a challenge at times. “Fuck yeah. That was the toughest thing, to turn down offers,” admits Ledger. “I never had offers before and it was the first time people were offering me stuff and money and I needed it. It just wasn’t worth it to me. I was quite happy with the money but I needed to eat so I found ways to stick it out. “ Although an agent is an agent and sometimes even his best friend has to push a little work his way, but when he did Ledger insists he just “slaps him down” with a big N-O. “We are still on the same page, which is the reason why I love him as an agent and as a friend. He understands what I am after but of course he can be an agent and push things at me that he has to.” Growing up in Australia, Ledger concentrated his time on drama and sports in school but when it came down to picking one or the other the arts outweighed the athleticism. He performed in the Globe Shakespeare Company in Australia before landing a TV series entitled ROAR, which got him the attention of some American industry execs. “It worked as a vehicle for me in a way because the right people saw it over here and people said I should come over here and get an agent and I did," says Ledger. "Someone rung me up when I was at the end of shooting BLACK ROCK (an indie styled Australian film) and they said, ‘come on kid’ and so I just came over with no intentions of staying for two and a half years. I thought it would be a couple of months.” He intends to make both the States and Australia his homes for now. His whole family still lives in Australia and he has no intentions of giving up his residence there. His focus now is reading good material and hoping to get the opportunity to be a part of quality filmmaking. As for the prima donna attitude and life style changes that may come along with his passions, he says it’s all up to him to keep grounded. “People always say once they get famous they get all these opportunities and get stars in their eyes and they change. And they turn nasty and they turn into pricks. I know pricks who have no money in the industry. And the fact is basically if it’s in you it’s in you, if it’s not it’s not.” Pamela Harland June 30, 2000 N E W S S T A N D YOUNG WONDER FROM DOWN UNDER from Newsweek It was a storybook moment—or at least it was meant to be. A young Australian actor, so broke he’s been bumming money off his agent, finally snags an audition that could jump-start his career. And, man, does he screw it up. “I had two scenes prepared,” says Heath Ledger, 21, of his first meeting with the makers of “The Patriot.” “Halfway through the second scene, I stood up and left. “I said, ‘I’m awfully sorry and I’m awfully embarrassed, but I’m wasting your time. I’m going to get up right now, and I’m going to walk out that door. Thanks for your time, but I’m giving you a bad reading. Catch you later.’ “ Ledger pauses. “I wasn’t comfortable being there. I wasn’t comfy in my own skin. It had been a long and hard year. I was dead broke. I was starving... So I left. I walked down the hallway with my tail between my legs and my head sunk.” Fortunately, Ledger’s agent begged for another audition, and the rest is American history. Despite mixed reviews—and some sniping from British historians that the movie whitewashes the unsavory exploits of colonialist Francis Marion, who was one of the inspirations for Mel Gibson’s character—”The Patriot” is expected to be one of summer’s most thundering hits, and Ledger’s winning, understated turn as Gibson’s defiant son is the real revelation in this Revolution. It is a tricky, pivotal role. As Gabriel, Ledger sets “The Patriot’s” plot in motion by drawing his reluctant father into the war. He narrates the movie with his letters home, embodies its spirit-of-’76 fervor and carries off some of its hokiest symbolism, such as when he’s seen solemnly mending a colonial flag. Most importantly, he is “The Patriot’s” young hottie. (This is a summer movie that never met a demographic it didn’t like.) OVER THE MOON OVER LEDGER Columbia Pictures executives swooned over Ledger when they saw footage from the South Carolina set. “They were over the moon,” says producer Dean Devlin. “They were just scrambling to figure out what else they could put him in. It was like this crazy hunt.” Ledger was tapped for the lead in “A Knight’s Tale,” a comic epic now shooting in Prague, and photographed for the cover of the August Vanity Fair. Superstardom? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Matthew McConaughey was the subject of identical hype not so long ago. Still, Ledger seems to have the looks and the talent to really take off, and not just get arrested for playing the bongos naked. Ledger himself does not seem to care tremendously either way. In person, the actor is frank and polite, but comes within millimeters of being too cool for school. He arrives for lunch looking like an ’80s pop star: sleeveless red T shirt, green jeans, a Dolce&Gabbana leather jacket and a wide, black leather bracelet. Ledger is a Camel smoker in a nonsmoking building, and so he’s jittery. He’s constantly stretching, leaning back in his chair, folding and unfolding his napkin. The actor, who was named after Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights,” grew up in Perth. His parents divorced when he was young (“I was 10, or something like that. It was, like, whatever” ), and for years he spent three weeks with one, then three weeks with the other. LOVE LEADS TO L.A. At 16, Ledger drove to Sydney, and began landing TV roles, including the lead in “Roar,” a medieval saga Fox was making Down Under. Ledger played a Celtic warrior-prince. “Ironically, it was a ‘Braveheart’ rip-off,” he says. “It was shot beautifully, and the script was half decent. But by the fifth episode the ratings weren’t going well, and all of a sudden sea sprites in bikinis were popping up.” When the show was cancelled, Ledger moved to the States. “I was in love, and, really, I followed a girl back to L.A.” In Hollywood, Ledger’s calm self-assurance—the essential whatever at the core of his character—served him well. He made his American debut playing a gravelly-voiced heartthrob in “10 Things I Hate About You,” a high-school variation on “The Taming of the Shrew.” “Heath has a very strong personality,” says costar Julia Stiles. “He radiates something that draws people to him.” Pause. “He’s also very sexy.” After “10 Things” got him noticed, Ledger spent a solid year turning down similar roles and going broke. “Your friends are calling you crazy, and you’re like, ‘I’m not . I promise you. You’ll see’.” By the time Ledger made it to “The Patriot,” he’d been too long away from lights, cameras and action. His first day of filming went as badly as his audition. “Heath was a wreck,” says Devlin. “He was very upset with himself. When I went to talk to him, he said, ‘You have to understand—there is no young, male Australian actor who doesn’t want to be Mel Gibson.’ And here he was, doing his first scene with him. The next thing I knew, I saw him and Mel go off together. I don’t know if they were rehearsing or just getting to know each other. But the next day Heath was like a transformed person.” A TEEN IDOL IN AUSTRALIA Now it’s his career that’s transformed. Ledger, who insists that he’s single, is already a teen idol in Australia. He recently went back to Perth and discovered how famous he’d become in his absence: “It was just crazy. For the first time, I couldn’t really do anything in my hometown.” Devlin believes that now that “The Patriot” is in theaters, Ledger will have a hard time doing anything anywhere: “The only thing that was ever close to this was when we did ‘Independence Day’ with Will Smith, and you could just feel that someone was rocketing to stardom.” Ledger, to his credit, waves off all hype. “I love acting. Oh, God, I love it. But all this fame and all this bulls—t attention... I’m not supernatural. I’ve done nothing extremely special to deserve the position. It happens every couple of years, and it’s happened to hundreds of people before me.” Careers, it’s true, are unpredictable things. Ledger’s won an important battle with “The Patriot.” Now he’s off to fight the war. Jeff Giles July 2, 2000 "I wasn’t comfortable being there. I wasn’t comfy in my own skin. It had been a long and hard year. I was dead broke. I was starving... So I left." Heath Ledger on his first reading for "The Patriot" "I love acting. Oh, God, I love it. But all this fame and all this bullsh*t attention... I’m not supernatural. I’ve done nothing extremely special to deserve the position." Heath Ledger on stardom "People always say once they get famous they get all these opportunities and get stars in their eyes and they change. And they turn nasty and they turn into pricks. I know pricks who have no money in the industry. And the fact is basically if it’s in you it’s in you, if it’s not it’s not." Heath Ledger "He pleasantly surprised me because for someone who is like a superstar he’s just a normal level guy, a gentleman. He gives everyone a piece of his time." Heath Ledger on Mel Gibson "I get excited when I read really great work. I love what I do and it’s a passion of mine." Heath Ledger reading scripts "He did, and I also learned a lot from him about acting, but it's all subtextual. I couldn't spell it out for you. Plus, it's mine. You know, it's in my little jewelry box. My goodies." Heath Ledger on getting advice from Mel Gibson "It was just understood. I had a feeling when we met that working together would be fun. There was an instant mutual understanding." Heath Ledger on the instant onscreen chemistry with Mel Gibson "But I never imagined I would be a professional actor. I started acting because it was fun, and it still is, so it's nothing I really stress about." Heath Ledger on his newfound success "Yeah, you know, in the water on their cellphones, making deals. You know, sharks." Heath Ledger on agents "I don't mind it, so many people bitch on about it. Its so easy to f*cking rip apart - its pretentious, its this and that, and it is you know." Heath Ledger on living in LA for three years "I don't know where the f*ck that came from, I was hearing that everywhere." Heath Ledger on rumours of being Buffy's next boyfriend "I don't sit there and envision my father's face on Mel's face." Heath Ledger on extremes of drawing from experience "About halfway through the movie I think everyone was wanting it to be over cause it was just so f*cking long, really it was big, it was big, it was big and complicated... as much as I wanted it to end I was having the time of my life so I wanted it to never end." Heath Ledger on feelings on the set of "The Patriot" "Mel like wouldn't know his lines before he like, literally right before we were about to shoot and he was like rushing around saying 'F*ck' as he scrounges through it, puts it down BANG... he just does it, and he leaves it that fresh." Heath Ledger on Mel Gibson's acting techniques "I was when I first got there, because it was novel and fun, and it was like "wow." Then it becomes boring and blatant. I just do my own thing, you know? You have to create a lifestyle for yourself, schedules, plans, things to do with friends. Washing." Heath Ledger on being a Hollywood guy "Yeah, I was shit scared. It was my first big-budget movie and there are a lot of pressures that come along with that. Anyone would be scared in that position." Heath Ledger on being scared prior to filming "There are a lot of physical differences, but it's mainly money." Heath Ledger on differences in American and Australian films "It's similar to what I went through with my father, getting to an age where you feel you had your own opinions and rules in life, taking off, doing them the hard way and not listening to what he has to say." Heath Ledger on the father and son storyline in "The Patriot" "If I have to pinch myself, then I'm probably some place I don't want to be, and this is where I want to be." Heath Ledger "Not strange, because it was coming. She’s an extremely beautiful girl, she’s intelligent, she can act, and she’s very professional." Heath Ledger on Keri Russell's fame "At the end of the day, I just want to tell a story. I’m a storyteller. I get up there and I want to transport people to different places." Heath Ledger on looking for a role "I have to do this every day over here to get a job. I’m always reading for American movies." Heath Ledger on sounding American "Yeah, you meet them, hang out - and discover they’re normal people" Heath Ledger on meeting celebrities "The fact that you actually care about the characters. That's extremely rare these days. In the movies I've seen, I didn't really give a shit if anyone got together." Heath Ledger on what sets "Ten Things" apart "I've been singing for a while, but they didn't want me to sing properly -- wanted it to be a bit rusty. Not that I'm an amazing singer, but I did have to pull back a little bit." Heath Ledger on singing in "Ten Things" "I had just got out of that stage in my life when I was running around in the backyard with guns, yelling and screaming, and then I got to do it all over again." Heath Ledger on playing Conor in "Roar" "A few teachers at school tried at every opportunity to discourage my participation in drama, basically telling me I was wasting my time. That kind of made me angry and determined to prove I could achieve the goals I set for myself." Heath on his drive towards drama

Heath Ledger On the Brink

The Patriot is making him a Hero, but he’d rather ride horses, snap photos or hang with his family.

Fireworks explode red, white and blue in the night sky, marching band music fills the air between booms, and the smell of gunpowder is everywhere. Though the smoke, a lone man appears… carrying a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Heath Ledger, Australian-born and –bred, stands amid the throngs in Los Angeles for the world premiere of The Patriot – the Revolutionary War drama that opened June 30, in which he costars as Mel Gibson’s son – experiencing a kind of pure American moment particular to this corner of the country some 224 years after the U.S. won its independence. Within minutes, the hunky 21-year-old actor, who has burst upon the Hollywood scene with his first role in an American blockbuster, will be offered an open invitation to the Playboy Mansion, congratulated by Cher and kissed by fellow emerging stars Robin Tunney (The Vertical Limit). You would expect him to show of excitement, but Ledger seems to be unmoved. “Pretty Boring,” he says. Then he smiles. “Just joking.”

These days, fanfare is following the solidly built, six-foot-one, blond-haired Ledger wherever he goes. He has received rave reviews for his performance as the eager young revolutionary, landed on the cover of Vanity Fair and inspired a rabid Internet fan base. His Patriot director , Roland Emmerich, speaks excitedly about Ledger’s good old-fashioned movie-star potential. “There were some shots,” he says, “some close-ups, where I said, ‘Wow, there is magic going on.’” And Ledger’s Patriot love interest, Lisa Brenner, almost blushes at the mention of his name; “He’s a total heartthrob.”

To this semiformal occasion, Ledger, a hot as a Roman candle, as cool as a cucumber, wears a leather motorcycle jacket, a T-shirt, jeans and Gucci sneakers (“freebies,” he explains). He’s casual but careful about what he says – you won’t hear him complaining about the trials of bouncing back and forth between Europe and the States while shooting A Knights Tale with director Brian Helgeland in Prague and promoting The Patriot in L.A. and New York. Nor will you hear him whine about the difficulties of growing up with divorced parents and setting out on his own at age 16. “It’s basically just so human,” says Ledger of his parents’ split.

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