The classic movie that Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt rejected
In 2005, Ang Lee changed the course of queer cinema forever with his cowboy romance drama, Brokeback Mountain. Set in the American West, the film followed Ennis Del Mar, played by Heath Ledger, and Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, through their complicated love affair. For the pioneering work of queer cinema, Lee received a ‘Best Director’ win and a ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Oscars.
Though the story and direction were highly praised, so, too, were the performances at the centre of the love story. Both Gyllenhaal and Ledger received ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role’ nominations at the 2006 Academy Awards. Though the film secured perfect leads in the two Hollywood staples – Ledger was so dedicated to the film that he boycotted the 2007 Oscars – casting the film was no easy feat.
According to filmmaker and queer cinema stalwart Gus Van Sant, who was originally in talks to direct the film, “Nobody wanted to do it”.
“I was working on it,” he told IndieWire, “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.”
Diana Ossana, who produced and wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain, concurred with Van Sant’s statement, adding: “Yes, all those young gentlemen (at the time) turned down the project, for various reasons.” Whether it was scheduling conflicts or actors simply daunted by the subject material, casting the film proved to be far more difficult than it might seem.
Van Sant himself even dropped out of the project, though this seemed to be due to creative differences: “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,” he explained. “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.”
Looking back on the project, the Good Will Hunting director accepted: “What I could have done, and what I probably should have done, was cast more unknowns, not worried about who were the lead actors.” Though this may have worked out, Ledger and Gyllenhaal turned out to be the perfect stars for Lee’s adaptation.
Alongside their exquisite performances as Twist and Del Mar, the actors were considerate and serious about the material. This further legitimised it to Hollywood and to the world, marking a monumental achievement and turning point in modern queer cinema.
