By Tim Nasson
Actor Heath Ledger is not quite as famous as I thought. Heath admitted during our breakfast sit-down together that not too many people other than his friends, colleagues and family know who he is. At the moment, that’s not surprising, since he currently sports a nearly shaved head for a role in the up¬ coming film Ned Kelly, not the
gorgeous curls that he is known for.
I asked Ledger what celebrity had done to him since we’d last talked in 2001, just before his starring turn in A Knight’s Tale. Ledger also co-starred in last year’s art-house hit, Monster’s Ball, playing the son of executioner Billy Bob Thornton.
“I can walk down Fifth Avenue here in New York City, sit at a sidewalk table, eat lunch and not be noticed, at least to my knowledge, even once,” he proclaimed. “The same in Los Angeles or London. And I don’t mind it one bit. I relish my anonymity.”
If Paramount, the film’s domestic distributor, has its way, 23-year-old Ledger’s drop-dead-gorgeous face and name (Heathcliff, derived from the book Wuthering Heights) will finally become famous. The Four Feathers, opening Friday, is the year’s first big-budget period piece, and Ledger takes the lead.
Shekhar Kapur, whose last movie, Elizabeth, was nominated for Best Picture, directs. The film goes back in time to Victorian England, like Elizabeth. This time around, Kapur tells the story not of the Virgin Queen, but of the fictional Harry Fevershem, one of Britain’s finest young soldiers, and an accomplished rugby player. Harry’s engagement (to Kate Hudson’s Ethne) awakens a sense of self-doubt, and when his regiment is called to active duty in North Africa to fight the Sudanese rebels, he resigns his commission. That’s where the four feathers come in.
Ledger explained the movie’s title. “Coward soldiers were handed a white feather, the symbol of cowardice. But Harry was not a coward. Resigning from the army was the most honorable thing he could have done.” But Harry’s father and his three best friends disown him after sending their feathers. To add fuel to the fire, Harry’s fiance breaks off the engagement and falls for his best friend, a soldier played by American Beauty’s Wes Bentley.
In his effort to regain the love and trust of his father, friends and former fiance, Harry embarks on an undercover journey through the North African desert dressed as an Arab, attempting to rejoin his regiment in Khartoum, only to
find out that they’ve been taken prisoner in their own British fortress by Sudanese rebels.
Clubless, not clueless
“Working on The Four Feathers was not fun and games,” admits Ledger. “Unlike A Knight’s Tale, which was filmed in Prague, there were no bars or clubs to go to in the middle of the desert for three months,” said Ledger. What
did he do to keep from going crazy? “I acted crazy. Many nights, I would play drums with the Sudanese, get drunk and smash red wine bottles around. It looked like a f@cking tribal ritual or something,” he said.
While Ledger looks better than ever during the first half-hour of the new film, with greased-down curls, devilish smile, university rugby uniform, and almost-naked body during a locker-room scene, his looks take a turn for the rough when he is trudging through the desert. “Those makeup women were amazing,” he said. “They really made me look ugly.” About the grizzly beard he has in the film: “I couldn’t have grown it on my own if I tried. I can’t even grow a five o’clock shadow.”
Ledger gained fame as a TV star. “I finished high school a year early, at 16, and decided to make the move from Perth, Australia, where there is nothing, to Sydney. So my best friend and I drove 2,600 miles,” searching for fame
and fortune. His breakthrough role came as a gay character on one of Australia’s most popular shows, Sweat. “My father didn’t think I was going to take a gay role. But I wanted to take the role that no one thought I would take,
and give it all I had.” It paid off. Not only did he get rave reviews, he soon landed an agent in the US and starred in his first movie, Ten Things I Hate About You, the only teen movie he has ever done, and “will ever do.”
There is a downside. “While not many regular people notice me on the street, it seems that the camera-toting tabloid reporters all know me. The stories they write about me in those magazines aren’t what offend me. I don’t care what they write about me and who I am having sex with. First of all, they aren’t in my house or hotel room, so they don’t really know what’s going on. What creeps me out is when people are so pathetic they follow me around
everywhere I go, hiding behind a bush, and popping out snapping pictures. They really need to get a life. My pictures can’t be worth that much.”
Whatever his tabloid pictures are worth, it seems to the motion pictures, he’s worth a lot: two million
dollars for Four Feathers. If Ledger continues to make sound choices, he’ll find that his pictures, on and off screen, are worth more than he could ever have imagined.
Heather Ledger Interview with Tim Nasson for Four Feathers.
