Brokeback Mountain of Focus Features, James Schamus to ask if the film was ever made. Ang Lee was considering retirement after "Hulk". In an interview with "Out" magazine, he described himself "wrecked" after filming both "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hulk". "Brokeback Mountain" "nurtured" him back into filmmaking. The casting of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal was announced in 2003. Anne Hathaway stated that during her audition, she lied to Ang Lee about her knowledge of horse riding so that he would cast her. Subsequently, she took horse-riding lessons for two months. While the film is set in Wyoming (like the original
Heath Ledger role in "Clowning Around" (1992), the first part of a two-part television series, and to work on the TV series "Sweat" (1996), in which he played a gay cyclist. From 1993 to 1997, Ledger also had parts in the Perth television series "Ship to Shore" (1993); in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama "Roar" (1997); in "Home and Away" (1997), one of Australia's most successful television shows; and in the Australian film "Blackrock" (1997), his feature film debut. In 1999, he starred in the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You" and in the acclaimed Australian crime film "Two