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 “I
think that no matter what I always look for humanity, like I always
look for a sense of hope. It can be in the bleakest story but I don’t
buy total perversity, utter perversity without hope. I may be naïve but
I believe that there is good to all of this, and those are the things
that move me. That’s definitely a part of my upbringing. The best part
of my upbringing [laughs]. And then the perversity plays a part of the
other part of my upbringing. But without the hope, I don’t think
anything really, really works; in particular, movies and stories.”
Have you been surprised by the way that Brokeback Mountain has been
embraced not just by critics but also by the public in America?
“You know, I am surprised both critically and publicly. I think
the thing that’s most interesting about it is I’ve never before, when
I’ve been in any movies, felt like the critics are the public. And when
I talk to particularly journalists, and men in particular, they say, ‘I
mean I’m straight and everything but, er, it’s really a movie about
friendship, right? Right!?’ you know, like they’re justifying it in
whatever way they can, so it becomes a discussion. At first, when we
went to all the festivals and did press, I was very surprised that
people were talking to us that way. Ang [Lee, the director] said people
don’t really come up and ask him questions. They tell him how they’re
feeling. So as we were talking to journalists, even the critics, we all
felt like it was a different feeling than usual, and it was like they
were an audience for the first time.
“I think the film also represents something to [the gay
community]. My godfathers are gay and they told me a lot about how
important the film is to their community. Just in theory it’s a very
special thing for them, you know? But at the same time I also think
it’s a very conventional love story, too. So in a way I’m not surprised
by the response. It’s definitely done in an unconventional way and in
an unconventional context, but it’s very conventional, and in that way
love stories always produce that kind of swell.”
It’s the gay angle though which makes it risky and, in the current conservative climate in America, political as well.
“I would hope so. I mean yeah, it stirs people up. It feels new.
That’s what I love most when I read scripts, or when I’m reading
anything: I want it to feel new, like you have never seen it before.
Like an audience is going to go in and go, ‘Oh, that’s a whole other
angle, or a whole other side, that we haven’t dusted off yet.’”
Brokeback Mountain is one of a number of gay-themed films
coming out, presumably partly in response to the rise in conservative
attitudes. Was that in your thinking when you took the project on?
“[Deep breath] First, it’s always about how I emotionally,
instinctually react to the story. I don’t choose my films as a social
or a political move, and that’s not my first motivation ever. I mean,
somehow, maybe the way I was brought up and what I consider important
is involved in those instincts somewhere, you know what I mean?
[Smiles] I know a lot of young actors that didn’t want to do this film,
and thank God they turned it down, because they were first choices over
me. And maybe their political background and how they were brought up
played into their instincts in responding to the material. But all I
can say is that when I read it, I got past something and saw what was
so beautiful about the film. I wasn’t consciously going, ‘This is
really going to rock ‘em and they’re really going to be surprised, and
we’re going to really give ‘em a one-two here.’ I was given a one-two
by the script [laughs], you know what I mean? I couldn’t not do it.”
Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead are not only more
controversial than anything else you have done but, dare I say it, more
mature, at least in terms of your roles. Do they feel like the start of
a new chapter?
“Definitely. Hopefully without presumption, definitely. These
movies are the first time I have done anything completely on my own,
without asking people what they thought of them and if I should do them
or not. I feel like I’m searching for a process in my acting --
Brokeback was the beginning of this and Sam really encouraged it on
Jarhead – but on these I felt like I was going to show up and whatever
I was actually feeling on the day, if I was not getting along with
Heath [ledger, on Brokeback Mountain] or not getting along with Peter
[Sarsgaard, on Jarhead], or I was getting along with Peter and I
shouldn’t have been in the scene, I was going to use it. So I was
working in a territory that was less structured than I’d ever been in
before.”
So your approach was much more instinctive than usual?
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody, the other day, described
Brokeback to me, and they said, ‘It starts sad, it is sad, and it ends
sad, and you walk out like that’. I think Heath and I were both in that
sadness for four or five months, and it took us a while to get out of
it. I just tried to carry those things with me.”
Did you go straight on to Jarhead from Brokeback?
"I had three months in between. But I got the role when I was
doing Brokeback, and I finished and just started working out. That was
the beginning of the end.”
Do you think the American public is going to have the stomach
for Jarhead the way that it has for Brokeback Mountain? They can see
images from Iraq on the news every day, why should they worry about a
soldier who doesn’t engage the enemy?
“Well it has come out in America. It was interesting the way it
was marketed. What is fascinating to me was the expectations that
people have one, for a Sam Mendes film, and two, for a war film. What
happened with the film was that it was marketed in such a way, I think,
that people believed it to be one thing and it actually ended up being
another thing. And that other thing was a film that’s filled with a
tremendous ambiguity, there are many questions posed and not much
answered, I think there’s a very disassociative factor to the whole
thing where you walk through it and can’t really get a grasp on
everything that’s happening at all times. You know, people keep saying,
‘Oh, it’s a war film with no war,’ which is very disturbing to me; but
it’s really a war film where they see little action, that the war that
they have is a war in their mind.
“That was the war for the soldiers who fought in the first Gulf
War, and that’s very special to them and it means a lot to them. I
think people just sort of expect somehow that blood is war and that
somehow even though they’re disturbed by those ideas and seeing those
things, really disturbed, it’s conventional and they understand it, and
they know somehow that when they go into a movie they’re going to see
that, and that’s what they expect. So it makes people feel very
uncomfortable when they don’t walk out having seen any of that.”
It seems to be very much a film about frustration. Not just
the frustration of not going into battle but also sexual frustration.
And the film itself seems designed to frustrate the pornographic thrill
which Anthony Swofford, the author of Jarhead, and the character you’re
playing, says in the book soldiers get from watching films that are
supposed to be anti war, like Apocalypse Now.
“Yeah, and in the film there’s the extra irony of Walter Murch
having been the editor of both Jarhead and Apocalypse Now in that scene
[where the soldiers watch Apocalypse Now]. Um, yeah, I mean look, I
don’t think you have to do much as a young man to create frustration
[laughs]. You know what I mean? Any type of frustration, be it mental
or sexual or whatever. That’s the primary reason why I felt like I
wanted to do the role. I felt so strongly about playing it because it
is a time in my life where I feel these feelings of frustration and
anger, and that feeling of wanting to punch your fist through a wall
and not understanding why. What I think I have discovered about the
military, in my short and peripheral experience of it, is that they
harness those feelings and focus them towards an end. They give them
meaning through missions. I think that is the intention of the film.
It’s almost the mindset of that. I think that for a lot of people, it
creates a very ambiguous and also a very varied response, you know, as
it should. I don’t think there’s any other intention besides that.”
The film’s sexualisation of war and the way that we see the
men’s sexual drives becoming re-directed towards a lethal end is
interesting.
“And also, ultimately, against themselves. If you’re trained to
kill and you don’t get to go and kill other people, then you end up
trying to kill each other. That’s the thing. When you leave 12 guys in
the middle of the desert there, they’re bound to do something odd.”
I read a quote from your mother where she said that she and
your father tried to impress upon you and your sister, Maggie, a kind
of secular humanism with a dash of politics as children. What did that
mean in practise and how do you think it informs your outlook today,
and the choices you make in your work?
“I think that no
matter what I always look for humanity, like I always look for a sense
of hope. It can be in the bleakest story but I don’t buy total
perversity, utter perversity without hope. I may be naïve but I believe
that there is good to all of this, and those are the things that move
me. That’s definitely a part of my upbringing. The best part of my
upbringing [laughs]. And then the perversity plays a part of the other
part of my upbringing. But without the hope, I don’t think anything
really, really works; in particular, movies and stories.”
Sorry, what’s the perversity in your upbringing?
“Oh, I just mean, you know, like every child . . . I think
that no one had a great childhood, no matter what they say. Even though
we all pretend that we want to go back and be children again, I don’t
think we would really want to, you know? That’s what I mean. Those
ounces of perversity, or maybe pounds, whatever, varying degrees for
everybody, but I just think that we all have had our share of pain as
children. Being a child is very hard in this world, no matter how you
were brought up, and I can see easily how you could spin that in my
case [laughs], but still, no matter what.”
Yes, people assume that you had this charmed upbringing because you were surrounded by all these glamorous people.
[Smiles] “Yes, I know.”
Do they annoy you, the assumptions people make? I read a
piece recently where the writer seemed almost irritated by the fact
that you could even consider doing something other than you are now,
like carpentry or whatever, because you were living the dream, he said,
of many young men -- although I think it was probably actually his
dream.
“Well, I actually do enjoy carpentry. It might annoy
him but unfortunately it’s something I really do actually enjoy, and to
me it’s a little offensive if, you know, somebody thinks that it’s like
not as exciting a job. Because, personally, I am happiest when I’m
building a table for my mom, you know? Which I did, and do, and I love
woodwork, you know? Our interests are all varying. I don’t know why I
find joy and calm doing that but I do.
“And yeah, my upbringing: it’s funny how people tinge it and
move it however they want to for whatever they need to move it for.
People say, you know, ‘Oh, Paul Newman taught you how to drive, right?’
and I say, ‘No, my father really taught me how to drive and he’s
getting a really bum rap because one day Paul Newman did take me out to
the race track.’ I said that once when I was doing press when I was 16
years old and now that’s all people write. Believe me I was in awe when
it happened. But I think people do sometimes, when I talk to
journalists or whatever, kind of like to go, ‘Well, it was this way,
wasn’t it?’ I don’t know, I don’t understand it completely, but I
understand them [sighs]. . . I have been through a lot even just
recently. In the past couple of days, it’s been very interesting to
hear what people have to say about how I was brought up, because my
experience of it was very different.”
Do you sense a kind of envy? The journalist who wrote the
piece I’m referring to said you were living the life that many young
men dream of having. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not . . .
[Laughs]
Do you have a sense of carrying people’s dreams with you?
[We both Laugh] “Yeah, right. I have no sense of anything
and you can quote me on that. [Laughs] No, I’m surprised at how much
people love Brokeback Mountain [can’t contain his giggles],
everything’s a surprise to me, what people feel about different things.
It’s amazing how people are responding to different things and what
bothers people and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, it seems, I’m always
trying to be as honest as I can and, unfortunately, that honesty can be
used how anybody wants to use it.”
Is it true that your bah mitzvah was held at a homeless shelter?
[Embarrassed laugh] “Yes, it’s true. That’s part of my
upbringing. Yeah, you know, I think I did grow up with privilege, and I
think my mum was always very keen and very careful of us having
perspective on the world. So yeah, as a young kid I would feed the
homeless, we would buy turkeys for Thanksgiving, and we would go bring
them to the homeless. Yeah, we would do all those things. It’s
something I take for granted and now when I talk about it in the press,
obviously, it sounds like however it sounds. But to me, that was my
mother being very conscious of giving us a perspective, and ultimately
I think it has really influenced me. I think it’s really important. I
think every child, no matter what, should have perspective wherever
they’ve grown up or been brought up, be free of judgement.”
But on your bah mitzvah? Aren’t we Jews made to feel guilty enough already?
[We laugh] “I guess so. But no, I have a lot of other things.
But yeah, you’re right. Well, because my father was Christian too, you
know, I think my parents were always a little unclear in terms of how
they wanted to raise us. But actually they were very clear about it. I
think they wanted to share everything and all those ideas with us, so
when it came around to having a bah mitzvah and doing that, I think
they split the opportunity and basically realised that in order to do
that, ‘Well, let’s go feed the homeless [laughs]’. Like that would be
the most logical religious response to both Christianity and Judaism,
so that was it [laughs].”
Apparently Sam Mendes first started thinking about you for
Jarhead when he saw you on stage in London in This Is Our Youth. That
was your stage debut. Why was it important for you to take to the
boards at that point, and why in London?
"Again, it was like I read the script and it’s an amazing play.
It’s a masterpiece. And a masterpiece for someone at the age that I was
at doesn’t ever come along. What was interesting is that I don’t think
at the time I was like, ‘Oh, it’s in London’, and I never realised what
that pressure was, and I think that naivety was a good thing, you know?
That play in particular has totally changed my life. John Madden [who
directed him and Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof] came to see me in that play,
Sam came to see me in that play, consequently four or five other
directors that I hopefully will work with in the future saw me in that
play, and those opportunities have brought me all the movie
opportunities I have gotten. As a movie actor, your representation
always says, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do a play because you could do this
or that and make money, and blah, blah, blah.’ But so many more
opportunities have come from it. And, I was just saying as I was coming
over here, at the time, which is probably a good thing, I don’t think I
realised how special of an experience that really was. In fact I
remember our stage manager turned to me and Hayden [Christiansen] and
Anna [Paquin], like four or five days into the run, and said, ‘Cherish
this time because you’ll never have an opportunity or have an
experience like this again because it’s really an extraordinary feeling
to be such a success that way your first time.’ I remember registering
that and being like, ‘OK, time to have fun.’ It was amazing. The next
thing I’m going to do will be on stage, without a doubt.”
Yes, I wondered whether you’d like to keep going between film
and the stage, because that play and your performance in it were huge
successes.
“I just think I’m fed by it. I’m sucked dry by film and I think
I’m fed by theatre. There’s a start and stop to film where you give and
you give and you give, and you don’t have that give and take like you
do in the theatre, and I think it’s just necessary. I get rid of bad
habits, but it just fills me. Right now I have a responsibility to the
next film director I work with to get filled up again before I go out
on the race track again.”
Which director? David Fincher, your director on Zodiac?
“No, I’m working with him now. He’s sapping it right now [laughs]. He does a lot of takes.”
When I interviewed Fincher for Panic Room, he struck me as a
very technical director. How is he to work with from an actor’s point
of view?
“You know, I think initially I thought the same thing about him,
and when we first started working I felt that way. I thought he was a
real technician and visualist and that seemed to be the most important
thing to him. But as we’ve worked together I feel like he really does
like actors, and he knows what’s really good in acting, too. I have a
real, real growing fondness for David and his relationship to actors.
To work with, though, we do on average 30 takes, and we do have up to
80. But I also think that’s great, too. Every director seems to have a
different, especially when they’re really great, a real personality and
style of making their film. And they’ve all been so different and so
wonderful in all these different ways. I just hope that I’ve taken in
as much as I can from them because who knows when the opportunity will
come again to work with people like that. I don’t know, it’s kind of
amazing.”
Sam Mendes has said that when he became serious about casting
you for Jarhead he was a little hesitant because he didn’t know if you
could become “enraged, violent and emotionally ugly”. Were you aware of
that and did you now that you had these things inside of you?
[Laughs] “I did know about his hesitation completely. And his
hesitation made me hesitate. But I feel like I knew I had it in me.
[Hesitates] I think I knew I had it in me. And yet proving it to him
was a hard thing. Trying to get his faith that I could do it was a hard
thing, and it took a while.”
How did you convince him?
[Hesitates] “I mean, well . . . [clicks his fingers] at a
certain point it was like I read with him and I did a really bad job
and I feel like he moved off of me as a prospect. When I read the book,
there was something about how Tony [Swofford] wrote, which is with a
deep sensitivity and a real empathy and a real understanding and regret
for everything he had experienced, but at the same time a real
appreciation for it too. He walked this fine line and there’s a
conflict inside of him continuously about what he’s been through and
learning the things he learned, and not ever having wanted to learn
them; and then also at the same time just loving it too and falling in
love with it. Somewhere in me I just felt I could do it. And I called
Sam in the middle of the night and I said, ‘I’ll do anything to play
this part. I’ll do anything.’ To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I
really knew. I put a lot of faith in Sam and said to myself, ‘He’s good
enough and he knows. If he’s sure I can do it, then I know I can do it,
too.’”
You’ve said recently that you realised in hindsight that both
Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead were films about extremes of loneliness
and what people discover about themselves there. Why do you think you
were looking for that at that point?
“Well the irony of it is
I don’t think at the time I knew that I was doing films like that.
Until I showed up on the set of Jarhead, in the middle of the desert,
in the middle of nowhere, you know, I didn’t realise that I had been
doing movies like that, and that maybe I had been grappling with some
sort of thing. I mean again, I can see how you can say, ‘Where does
this loneliness come from, or this interest in loneliness?’ To me I
think the most interesting things happen when you sit with yourself and
when you’re alone. Like if you really let yourself be that way. When we
were in Calvary [on Brokeback Mountain], I was alone for a very long
time; I mean not even with Heath. We would get off work and we would be
literally in the middle of nowhere, living in trailers, on our own.
Sometimes we would get together and all have dinner together, sometimes
we’d all be alone. Something about the topography of the spaces I was
in, just sometimes even the geography, that it was nowhere near
anywhere I had ever been or knew at all, I needed to explore. I needed
to explore that territory. You grow up in a city and there’s everything
around you all the time, and I don’t think you realise how lonely you
are until you get out of there. You know, what I think about Brokeback
Mountain is that the reason why these two men fall in love is out of
loneliness. Like there’s just nothing more in their lives when they
meet and it’s the best thing that happens to them when they meet there.
And the same thing, I think, in a weird way, Tony Swofford has to go to
that place of almost utter, desperate, horrible loneliness in order to
become, in a way, the writer that he became. I don’t know, I just feel
like you got to go to those places and somehow, unconsciously, I was
there all of a sudden. I don’t know really why I picked those films.”
And have you emerged a different person?
“Yes, definitely. To me, it’s hard to be sitting here and
dealing with the result, you know, and talking about the result of
them. For a long time I was very interested in the result, what people
thought and all these things, but to me these experiences were not that
at all. To me I’m a different person because of the process of both of
these films, not because of the result of them. That, to me, is really
important to distinguish, regardless of people’s judgements.”
Have you discovered a greater sense of self?
“Uh, I
think it’s just like I’ve grown up [laughs]. I don’t know if it’s a
greater sense of self or just feeling a little closer to being able to
be an adult, and that is pretty hard in the movie business, you know
what I mean? [Laughs] But I feel that way. And working with these
people, what I’ve gotten from them as human beings, like yes, Sam
Mendes is a brilliant director, and yes, Ang Lee is a brilliant
director, and yes, David Fincher is a brilliant director, and yes,
Peter Sarsgaard is an amazing actor, and Heath Ledger gives an
incredible performance in the film, all those things, but just the
interactions that I have with them as human beings, I’ll never forget.
I talked to Ang last night and yeah, he was my director and all those
things, but he’s a wonderful person. Sam and I spent a ton of time
together as friends and that matters to me the most and it’s because
we’ve all been through these experiences. I was in my trailer while Ang
Lee was doing Tai Chi outside of his every morning, for months, so we
shared something special. And that’s the most important thing to me
now.”
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So glad the British Academy recognised Jake\'s gutsy performance for Brokeback (LOVED Ruby Wax\'s interview with him on the red carpet)
. He is a rare talent, expressive (even more through his body language than ) in his words which gives more of a sense of who he is. Brokeback Mountain touched people of all races, gender, colour etc. I can\'t eloquently put into words what Brokeback has achieved but Heath and Jake made me forget it was about two men. It was about two people connecting in a way no-one could understand. If we are lucky in our lives to have that connection, we need no-one\'s permission to interpret what it means. I hope he keeps making those informed, brilliant choices in his career and come back and tread the boards in London or Stratford-Upon-Avon. We\'re waiting. 
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Have faith in serendipity.