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
Jake Gyllenhaal well received by critics; Gary Mairs of Culture Vulture wrote that "Gyllenhaal manages the difficult trick of seeming both blandly normal and profoundly disturbed, often within the same scene." After the critical success of "Donnie Darko", Gyllenhaal's next role was as Pilot Kelston in 2002's "Highway" alongside Jared Leto. His performance was described by one critic as "silly, cliched and straight to video". Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in "The Good Girl", which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he also starred in "Lovely and Amazing" with Catherine Keener. In both films he plays an unstable