Heath Ledger Affected Jake Gyllenhaal's Career After Brokeback Mountain (And Not Always In A Good Way)

Summary

• Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger refused to be an Oscars presenter in 2007 due to jokes about the film, showing his seriousness and devotion to the love story.
• Ledger's untimely death had a profound impact on Jake Gyllenhaal, causing him to prioritize meaningful relationships over the fleeting success of a film.
• Jake Gyllenhaal still cannot watch Brokeback Mountain, emphasizing the mysterious and deeply personal nature of the film's story and the bond between the two actors.

Jake Gyllenhaal has revealed his Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger refused to be a presenter at the 2007 Oscars due to a joke involving their movie.

Gyllenhaal explained that the co-stars, who play romantic interests, were invited back to present at the Oscars the following year, but Ledger refused because he did not want to make jokes about Brokeback Mountain.

The Donnie Darko actor revealed what actually happened behind the scenes in an interview with Another Man magazine, “I mean, I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it."

“And Heath refused. I was sort of at the time, ‘Oh, okay… whatever.’ I’m always like, ‘It’s all in good fun.’ And Heath said, ‘It’s not a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it,'" the Nightcrawler star revealed to the outlet.

He also spoke up in 2019 about how seriously Heath Ledger took the role of Ennis Del Mar. "I see people who have joked with me or criticized me about lines I say in that movie—and that's the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke," Gyllenhaal explained. "Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, 'No. This is about love. Like, that's it, man. Like, no.'"

How Brokeback Mountain Changed Jake Gyllenhaal's Life

Jake Gyllenhaal opened up to Sunday Today about how the Oscar-nominated drama impacted his career and his life.

“When we did Brokeback Mountain, I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’ This is a level of focus and attention that hits a certain nerve and you’re like, ‘This is bigger than me,’” he explained. “I understand what it is but this little movie we made that meant so much to us has now become not ours anymore. It’s the world’s.”

The actor also revealed to Another Man that he is still unable to watch Brokeback Mountain, years after its release. “There are things you’re chosen for – a quality, an essence – and Ang [Lee, the film's director] did that. And it’s still a mystery to me. And something that Heath and I shared: that it was a mystery to us at the time,” he said.

"When it came to Jake, Heath had a very different attitude towards their work," director Ang Lee told Empire Magazine. "Sometimes there was friction – not quarreling, but a clash of styles... Sometimes I would mediate that, but they were both good in different ways. They would always make the effort to find a way through."

Jake Gyllenhaal's Profound Love For His Co-Star Heath Ledger

In the Ang Lee-directed movie Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play a cowboy and a ranch hand who become star-crossed lovers. The queer love story earned praise as well as criticism, becoming one of the most controversial movies in Oscar history.

Gyllenhaal and Ledger both landed Oscar nominations for their performances, while the movie won three awards. Reflecting on his experience making Brokeback Mountain, the actor told Vanity Fair: “You know, the relationship, I think between me and Heath while we were making this movie was something that was based on a profound love for a lot of people that we knew and were raised by in our lives and a deep respect for their love and their relationship.”

The Ambulance star praised the late Ledger's approach to the subject matter and the complicated feelings the two characters had for each other. This may have been why The Dark Knight actor didn't want to be part of any jokes involving the movie at the Academy Awards.

“One of the things I really remember about the process after the movie came out was Heath never wanting to make a joke,” the Prisoners actor explained “Even as I think culturally, there were many jokes being made about the movie or poking fun at and things like that. And his consummate devotion to how serious and important the relationship between these two characters was.”

“It showed me, I think, how devoted he was as an actor and how devoted he was, and we both were, to the story in the movie. And for us, the experience of the movie, I can say, was a really deep and fun one.”

How Losing Heath Ledger Impacted Jake Gyllenhaal

Jake Gyllenhaal also opened up in 2016 about how Ledger's untimely death in 2008 impacted his life. “Personally, it affected me in ways I can’t necessarily put in words or even would want to talk about publicly,” Gyllenhaal said about his co-star's death at 28 “In terms of professionally, I think I was at an age where mortality was not always clear to me.”

Gyllenhaal was only 27 when Ledger died, he had not lost many friends at that point in his life. “It [gave me] the experience of, ‘This is fleeting.’ And none of the attention or synthesized love that comes from the success of a film really matters at all,” he shared. “What matters is the relationships you make when you make a film, and the people you learn from when you’re preparing for a film. That changed a lot for me.”

"I'm trying to have relationships that are as real as they possibly can be on a movie set, be close to people because I know that it's precious," the Southpaw star revealed, trying to enjoy every second he has with his friends and colleagues. "And I know, not only can this career end in a very short period of time and this or that can happen but that life is precious."