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 death. While working on the film in London, Ledger told Sarah Lyall in their "New York Times" interview that he viewed "The Dark Knight"s Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy". For his work on "The Dark Knight", Ledger posthumously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which his family accepted on his behalf, as well as numerous other posthumous awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, which Christopher Nolan accepted for him. At the time of his death on 22 January 2008, Ledger had completed about half of the work for