| His recent experience filming turn-of-the-century military drama, Four Feathers, in Morocco sounds anything but fun. Sandstorms and flash floods, on-set injuries and calamitous script wranglings beset the production, directed by the notoriously demanding Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth). But for Ledger, it was the beards. “Oh man, that was tough,” he affirms, shaking his head. “I was in Morocco for three months, and this sounds whingey, but I had three hours in the make-up chair every day so I was only getting three hours’ sleep a night. And I had so many beards – long hair, short hair, and they were constantly changing. At the end of the London shoot we had to go back to Morocco to do pick-up shots. I sat in the chair on the last day and the look I had to have was the worst of the lot – long hair, long beard, blood, bruises, cracked lips, black eye. I felt the glue brush on my cheek and I actually wanted to vomit. Emotionally it was tough, too. Total commitment; you’re either all in or all out with Shekhar. Brian (Helgeland) was very different. He just put us in a room, supplied us with alcohol and watched us get drunk.” And you can’t get any more yin and yang than that. |