NEW YORK-- --Heath Ledger is driving me home.
Movie stars don't usually drive journalists anywhere, especially distances that require knowledge of rules of New York streets. But this Brooklyn transplant of five months powers his car - a blue BMW - with the leisurely assurance of a cowboy on the range.
The star of Brokeback Mountain, set for release in Baltimore on Jan. 6, Ledger is slung back in his seat, his long legs stretched out in ratty jeans, a hood pulled over his dusty brown hair.
In movies, the high cheekbones slash across the screen. In person, he merely looks indistinct, curiously unassuming.
"This is my life when I'm in New York. I drive Michelle everywhere," he says, referring to his partner and Brokeback Mountain costar Michelle Williams.
On the day we meet, Williams is soon to give birth to their first child, a girl. They're also moving to a new house in Brooklyn.
As he cruises up the West Side Highway, the Australia native chats about the rapid life changes of the last couple of months. He sold his bachelor pad in L.A.'s Los Feliz neighborhood. He moved east.
Ledger could be just another involved dad-to-be. In a way, he's shyer about his public transformation - the one that everyone in America is about to see.
This fall shows him in a pair of contrasting roles.
Casanova, in which he plays the raffish title character, showcases his able comedic chops.
Ledger's other film, Brokeback Mountain, is the one that represents his evolution from dude to one of the most wrenching and poignant actors of his generation.
Save for several potent minutes in the indie Monster's Ball, there's little in his resume - from his American debut in 10 Things I Hate About You to the Arthurian romp A Knight's Tale and the action-adventure The Patriot - that prepares the audience for the depth of Ledger's Ennis Del Mar, the cowboy at the center of Brokeback Mountain.
`Gay cowboy' movie
Based on an E. Annie Proulx short story, the $13-million film, directed by Ang Lee and shot in Calgary, Canada, is the tale of two dirt-poor cowboys (Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) and their love for each other, carefully suppressed and hidden from the world around them.
Ever since it won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2005, the film has been known in Hollywood as "the gay cowboy movie."
