Aussie actor Heath Ledger may be concerned about what critics and audiences will think of his new movie, “Candy,” in which he plays a troubled poet whose heroin addiction threatens to engulf both him and his girlfriend. It is, after all, his first big-screen appearance since his performance in last year’s “Brokeback Mountain” earned him an Oscar nomination and announced him as a serious contender in Hollywood.
But if he is concerned, he’s not letting on.
In fact, if yawning audibly and repeatedly during a phone interview is any indication, the 27-year-old seems rather nonchalant about the whole thing. Or maybe he’s just tired of talking about it, tired of his every move being documented and scrutinized.
Regardless, he’s got little to worry about.
“Candy” may not enjoy huge commercial success — the tough movie asks viewers to go through several rings of junkie hell during a season devoted to hope. But Mr. Ledger cuts a diamond performance from a rough-edged, not-so-sympathetic character, just as he did in “Brokeback.”
His nuanced depiction may, indeed, impress people, but the actor says he wasn’t motivated by that. Instead, he says, the biggest factor in his decision to do this movie was that it allowed him to go back home to Australia and work in his own accent.
“It had been eight years since I’d used my own accent,” explains the star, “and I was looking forward to the freedom from that restraint. So, really, that is mostly to blame. It had less to do with the [film’s] content than just wanting to get home.”
“Candy” was a chance to revisit the place that had given him a start in TV and film. Back then, he says, he wasn’t very good. In fact, once when he told his mother as much, she replied, “It’s OK,” consoling him rather than denying it. He says this was something of a turning point for him, one that eventually fueled better-received performances in projects such as “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Monster’s Ball.”
However, reconnecting with his past wasn’t as easy as he had imagined. “I’d become so accustomed to the [non-Australian] accent and studying it and having that be such a part of my … discovery of the character,” says Mr. Ledger. “It’d been my starting point for so long, I didn’t really know where to start.”
Where to start learning about drug addictions, then, was somewhat more clear-cut: a rehab clinic. He and co-star Abbie Cornish visited addicts who taught the stars the proper technique for shooting up. They even practiced on a prosthetic arm.
On the set, addiction experts advised the cast about what feelings they would encounter during the various stages of drug use and withdrawal, coaxing an unsettling mix of hypereuphoria, anxious anticipation and flat-out tremors out of the actors.
Mr. Ledger manages credibility in the role, but says that he did not have identical experiences of his own available to mine in creating the character. He admits, “I can certainly understand addiction, [though]. I’ve been addicted to tobacco; I know what it is to crave something.”
He continues, “I just feel like most people out there could portray a junkie if they needed to.” It’s one of the dozens of hints of humility that surface during the interview. Another occurs when he says of watching Gary Oldman in “Sid & Nancy” (the story of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, also a heroin addict) recently, “It made me feel like I was just candy-coated.”
Perhaps this personality trait has something to do with why the actor lives in Brooklyn, not Hollywood. And why he’s settled in with a family, fiancee Michelle Williams and 1-year-old daughter Matilda. And why he doesn’t have a dream role in mind, preferring instead to keep his expectations realistically rooted.
“I just take it as it comes,” he states.
Soon, that will mean reinventing himself as the Joker opposite Christian Bale’s Batman in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” However successful he is at this, you can’t say he isn’t adventurous.
“I guess it’s just a quest to stay enthusiastic and interested,” the performer says of his career. “Retelling the same story, I’d go out of my mind.”
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