Ledger downplays Oscar hype
2006-02-16 12:53
Berlin - Oscar contender Heath Ledger made the Hollywood A-list with his portrayal as a gay cowboy before a brief flirtation with levity playing Casanova. Now he is getting serious again as a dropout heroin addict.
The 26-year-old Australian was in Berlin on Wednesday to promote his latest film Candy, the tough and at times shocking story of Dan and his girlfriend Candy whose lives descend into living hell because of their dependency on drugs.
Divided into three parts, the narrative follows the young lovers through "heaven" and its sex-fuelled bliss, "earth" and life in a brothel, pregnancy and a graphic hospital sequence, and the "hell" of mental breakdown.
In pursuit of happiness
Director Neil Armfield, a fellow Australian, said the film was less about heroin addiction than about the bubble of happiness people in the West try to build around them.
"It seems to me we are all pursuing ... this obsession with the perpetuation of pleasure at whatever cost," he said before the world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where the picture is in competition.
"The planet is being destroyed because people want their Hermes handbag."
Ledger, who had to avoid the summer sun while shooting the picture to keep his addict's pallor, said he and co-star Abbie Cornish visited a drug rehabilitation centre as part of their research for the roles.
"(We) met with a gentleman who had been a junkie or an addict for 25 years and interviewed him," Ledger said.
Geoffrey Rush, also Australian, is a scene-stealer as a benevolent gay professor who supplies the couple with drugs when they fall on hard times.
The film is based on a Luke Davies novel.
No great expectations
Inevitably, the questions to Ledger quickly turned to the Oscars, where he is a best actor nominee for his part in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, about two lonely cowboys who fall in love in the wilds of Wyoming.
Asked about his expectations for the big night on March 5, he replied: "I have none". George Clooney, also in Berlin for the festival, was equally downbeat about his chances of picking up an Academy award from his three nominations.
Ledger added: "It's such a surreal concept to be competing and thrust into a competition whether you are acting or directing.
"Everyone's playing different sports and you all start from different lines and are finishing at a different spot. We are all kind of being dragged through it."
The fact that his real-life partner Michelle Williams, who starred with him in Brokeback, was an Oscar nominee for best supporting actress was helping to relieve the pressure, he said.
A third Academy Award contender, Philip Seymour Hoffman, arrives in Berlin later this week for the highly acclaimed Capote. He is competing with Ledger for the best actor award.