Q. Apparently, this took a long time to bring to the screen?
A. It was almost four years ago. I read it because James [Schamus] recommended it to me – the short story first and then the script. I think this was one of the great scripts that had never been done, it had been floating around and James mentioned that it was something quite special.
I choked up when I read the short story, particularly when one of the characters says: “All we got is Brokeback Mountain, everything’s built on that.” It struck me as quite existential. And then when emotions actually land towards the end, when Ennis takes the shirts out from the closet, I had tears in my eyes.
The material is pretty peculiar because it’s realistic American rural life which I’d hardly seen before. We’ve seen a lot of Westerns, created movie genres, gunslingers and heroic tales, even romances. But I’d never seen anything like that. They talk in a way that was quite peculiar.
So in some ways this was very refreshing and mysterious. It was great material. But we went and did The Hulk anyway. I’ve got a big heart and a big ambition, I was in a riff after Crouching Tiger to do something really ambitious. Then after I got what I was wishing for, I provoked a lot of anger and I was exhausted.
It was like deflating The Hulk back to Bruce Banner. I was very tired, I was actually thinking of retiring. I felt that after Crouching Tiger I’d had enough. And then one day I just asked James, bitterly, how the movie [Brokeback] turned out. He said it wasn’t done yet and I thought then that I didn’t want to miss it a second time. So I asked James to promise me that if we were to go about this, he had to make sure not to make me angry!
I didn’t think my body could take it any more.

Q. Is it true that your father also encouraged you?
A. My father passed away but before he passed he told me to go ahead and make another movie because he could see how depressed I was. He never encouraged me to make movies. Even after I got an Oscar he still thought I should be teaching or doing something for real. I never told him I was going to do a gay cowboy movie. Anyway that’s what happened, and I feel very blessed that I came across this beautiful bit of writing, and the chance to do it at peace.

Q. Did it turn out the way you hoped?
A. It was a really healing process for me, I loved making this movie. And the results so far in the responses we’ve had are great. To me it’s a true American love story.

Q. You have a very diverse body of work. What is it that attracts you to a project, given that your films are so different?
A. I don’t know what it is, I just know when they attract me. I have a gut reaction. I’m willing to be persuaded but I feel that the right project belongs to me and I will be possessed by it. It’s usually something mysterious to me. In fact, I cannot think of anything that’s further away from me than gay ranch hands in Wyoming.
But somehow it spoke to me, I had tears in my eyes and I was willing to spend a year or two finding out about these men. It’s usually something like that. They’re Ang Lee films because they are not particularly work for hire. I use genres, I have to borrow and come to terms with these things.

Q. Is it true that Heath Ledger nearly broke Jake Gyllenhaal’s nose when they filmed the kiss?
A. Yeah, because I encouraged them to do a passionate kiss. I said you can never kiss a woman that hard, so I urged them to give the most heroic Western kiss. They went about it and nearly broke each others’ noses.
At that time, we were careful not to crack jokes, usually I don’t rehearse those scenes. Technically I will rehearse it but how they go about it, I just expect them to deliver based on the rehearsals and what we talked about, and all the preparations they do as actors. To me, the shooting needs to be fresh and spontaneous, so I don’t talk too much except for technical notes.

Q. What were some of the other challenges you faced?
A. I wish we could have had the freedom to shoot according to the dramatic need in the schedule. But this was a low budget film, we shot where we had to shoot, and more importantly they had to accurately carry their age, how they carried themselves. Those details go a long way when you add up 20 years of affection.
Even though it’s a short story it’s an accumulation of life. That part is actually a lot harder for us to be accurate with. But we were very careful about that and made efforts to make it work.

Q. How did Heath go about getting his accent right?
A. I think he was very good about adapting his accent. We had a great coach who would take characters in real life and break it down analytically and work with him in practice. He adapted quite quickly, he had no problems.

Q. Was Jake easy to convince about taking on such a role?
A. We had to wait a little bit for Jake, coming off the promotion of The Day After Tomorrow, so he wasn’t there for the first week. I saw other actors, but I decided to go with younger actors and have them play older so we could use that young innocence as an ingredient. I’d rather go with good younger actors, in their early 20s, and I think these two are among the best in that age group, and they very much wanted to do it.

And Heath?
A. I was in Asia and was told that Heath was willing to fly to Taiwan or Thailand, or wherever, to meet me. That meant he really wanted to do it. So I came back to meet him.

Q. So did you cast them for their chemistry?
A. I think Heath has a more individual quality, he has to be the anchor of the movie, even though there are two parts to the love story. Heath is carrying the story, with the non verbal aura and the western disposition, he’s the anchor.

Q. Would you say the story is specifically about that time and place – or is it universal?
A. It could be set in the east, but it wouldn’t be as poignant and poetic and elegiacal. In a way it was inherited in the western literature which was provided by Annie Proulx. I just don’t see any other way. I haven’t.
I think that particular period of time she set it in really helped the primacy of their feelings, the uniqueness, and therefore it was a pure way of telling a love story. It’s almost like the oldest love story, but you have the newest texture. So I very much treasure that.

Q. Do you think it would it be different now for Ennis and Jack, now that attitudes may have changed?
A. I bet they would have more understanding. They would probably have heard the word gay and been aware of homosexuality, but I don’t think it’s a lot easier. It is changing very slowly. Probably too slow for resolving the story.

Q. What were the qualities that Heath possessed as an actor that impressed you the most when it came to casting?
A. I was very impressed with what he did in Monster’s Ball. I think he has the goods. And then I met him in person, I thought he was very good to be the anchor man for the movie – he had that particular western, brooding disposition about him.
I never doubted that he was a very good actor, but as a leading man in a dramatic role [like this] he was going to be tested. But it was very clear to me he could do it. I hope this movie is a coming of age for him, as a serious leading man.

Q. The film also contains some very well rounded female characters as well – was that important?
A. Yes, definitely. I think in the short story the writer has the benefit of writing internal depictions and we don’t. I think the women and other characters are important in terms of the realism, how much they feel and their confusion. It really legitimises the film’s environment.
Their struggle feeds back to our main characters’ conscience and adds to their drama. They’re definitely very important supporting roles and because we don’t have internal writing we can’t leave it to the audience’s imagination and count on them, we had to see them. So those added scenes had to be there.

Q. The casting of Anne Hathaway could therefore be viewed as a brave choice? What attracted you to her?
A. She got the part simply because she came in and did the best reading. A number of good actresses read for the part and they had to do the last scene, when she’s on the phone, really pissed but with displaying a subtle jealousy in her tone.
Anne just came in and did the most striking, accurate reading. I was very surprised. Actually, I didn’t see The Princess Diaries movies. The casting director probably didn’t let me know who she was, she just said she would come in and apologise for her hair and make up.
It turned out she was shooting Princess Diaries 2 on the same lot we were reading people. She had this ridiculous hair and make up, but it was her lunch break.

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