Brokeback Mountain is one of the most critically acclaimed movies about a homosexual relationship. Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, the story follows two men who have an affair behind their ladies' back. Their relationship becomes complicated once both men get married and start families, and the film is an emotional drama that helped both Ledger and Gyllenhaal's careers. Directed by Ang Lee (Life of Pi), Brokeback Mountain was originally a film that Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) was interested in making.
Van Sant recently sat down for an interview with IndieWire, and revealed that he had two different stars in mind when he was planning on filming Brokeback Mountain. “Nobody wanted to do it,” Van Sant stated. “I was working on it, and I felt like we needed a really strong cast, like a famous cast. That wasn’t working out. I asked the usual suspects: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Ryan Phillippe. They all said no.”
“The original story, which was in The New Yorker, was so beautiful and simple, and Larry had turned it into something that resembled The Last Picture Show,” Van Sant continued. “Which was really good if you were thinking along certain lines … I was thinking more like Gerry, Elephant, Last Days. I kind of wanted to go back to the simplest view of the short story, which I couldn’t do … I didn’t really want to go and talk Larry and Diana out of what they had created, because it was great.”
