After nearly 15 years since Brokeback Mountain, Jake Gyllenhaal revealed that his co-star, the late, great, Heath Ledger, refused to present at the Oscars — taking a stand against the homophobic jokes that seemed to orbit the film.
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Heath Ledger Didn't Present At The Oscars Because Of Homophobic 'Brokeback Mountain' Jokes
It's hard to believe that it's already been almost 15 years since *Brokeback Mountain* made its big debut.
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The movie was forward-thinking, ahead of its time, and it had an iconic cast.
What's not to love?
For those of you who have never seen the movie, let's get you up to speed.
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It was a tale of two cowboys in the 1960s and their forbidden but 20-year-long romance.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays rodeo cowboy, Jack Twist, and Heath Ledger played his ranch hand, Ennis Del Mar.
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The pair were hired as sheepherders in Wyoming, where their romance budded.
One night, Jack makes a pass at Ennis, after a drunken night on Brokeback Mountain — a pass that is eventually reciprocated, repeatedly.
Jake and Heath remained close friends off-screen.
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So close, in fact, that Heath made Jake the Godfather of his daughter, Matilda Rose, and Busy Philipps as her Godmother, in October of 2005.
After Heath's untimely death, Jake stepped in to help Heath's wife, Michelle Williams, take care of Matilda, who was only three years old at the time of the tragedy.
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For the most part, Jake has kept quiet about his friendship with Heath ever since his accidental overdose in 2008.
He told *People* in 2016 that Heath's passing “affected me in ways I can’t necessarily put in words or even would want to talk about publicly.”
YouTube | Sunday Today
Anyway, because the film was so ahead of its time, it was the center of a lot of homophobic jokes.
In an interview with Sunday Today back in July 2019, Jake revealed exactly how Brokeback Mountain affected his reputation an acting career, and how his late costar, Heath, took to the scrutiny.
"When we did Brokeback Mountain, I was like, 'Whoa, what's going on?,'" Jake said.
"This is a level of focus and attention that hits a certain nerve and you're like, 'This is bigger than me,'" he said. "It was amazing. It was crazy."
“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 went on. "He would never joke."
“Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, ‘No. This about love,’” he said.
In a more recent interview in a 2020 issue of *Another Man*, Jake revealed that Heath actually took a stand against the homophobic jokes by refusing to present an award at the Oscars.
YouTube | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
“I mean, I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it,” he said.
“And Heath refused."
YouTube | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
"I was sort of at the time, ‘Oh, okay… whatever.’ I’m always like: It’s all in good fun," he went on, before explaining that Heath took the jokes more seriously.
"And Heath said, ‘It’s not a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it.'”
When asked if Jake agreed with Heath's decision, he replied:
"Absolutely."
He then admitted that he hasn't been able to watch the film again.
YouTube | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
“There are things you’re chosen for – a quality, an essence – and Ang [the creator of Brokeback Mountain] 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 continued.
YouTube | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
He explained that the film has a very special meaning to him because of his own life experiences.
“The life experiences of them are so deep that no matter how powerful the movie is to many other people, or what it means to them".
YouTube | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
"It means something completely different to me," he concluded.
What do you think of Heath Ledger refusing to present at the Oscars because of the homophobic jokes around *Brokeback Mountain*?
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Sound off in the comments below!
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