Brokeback Mountain’s Cast and Crew Remember How the Movie Came to Be

When Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain opened in theaters twenty years ago, its remarkable love story soon became an American classic. “A landmark film,” wrote Rolling Stone, that “hits you like a shot in the heart.” Based on Annie Proulx's short story of the same name, the film recounts the lifelong romance between two Wyoming cowhands, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), who meet one summer herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain. Even though both men move off in separate directions—Ennis marries his longtime sweetheart Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) and Jack gets hitched to a fellow rodeo rider, Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway)—they regularly return to Brokeback Mountain and to the love that was sparked so many years ago. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards®, winning for Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana).

To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Brokeback Mountain is returning to the big screen. We remember the evolution and creation of this great American masterpiece through the people who helped create it.

Brokeback Mountain is in select theaters this week — get tickets now!

The following quotes are from Brokeback Mountain's cast and crew come from the original interviews during the making of the film's EPK.

Ang Lee (director): To me, Brokeback Mountain is uniquely, and universally, a great American love story.

Diana Ossana (screenwriter/producer): In October 1997, I was in Texas staying with Larry McMurtry and some friends, one of whom had given me The New Yorker with Annie Proulx's short story. Two-thirds of the way through reading the story, I began to sob, and I sobbed all the way to the end. I was floored. Emotionally exhausted, I went to sleep, got up the next morning and read it again because I wanted to see if it affected me as much in broad daylight as it did in the middle of the night. Its effect on me was even more profound. I took the magazine downstairs and asked Larry to read the story.

Larry McMurtry (screenwriter/executive producer): I don't read fiction much anymore, so I was reluctant. But in her tenacious way, she asked that I humor her and read it. After I finished reading it, the first thing I thought was that I wished I had written it. It was a story that had been sitting there for years, waiting to be told, and Annie finally wrote it. It is one of the finest short stories I've read. The place, the landscape, the men, and the way they speak are drawn precisely and convincingly.

We wrote Annie a short letter, asking her to option the story to us so that we could adapt it for a screenplay. She responded within a week, and we launched into writing. So, by the end of 1997, we had a screenplay.

Lee: If a project is not scary and sensitive, then it's probably less interesting to me. After Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, we were on our way to make our next project, and James Schamus mentioned to me that he just came upon this interesting material. I read the short story, which I wasn't aware of when it was first published. I had tears in my eyes at the end, and it stayed with me. I [then] read Larry and Diana's screenplay, and it was a very faithful and great adaptation.

James Schamus (producer): Larry and Diana's screenplay took a spare, brief, and intense short story and managed to maintain its purity while vastly increasing its scope - not an easy task

Lee: I decided to take a risk and go with a younger cast. It's a 20-year story, and you cannot recreate youth that easily. I decided to go with [actors in their] younger 20s. The young have innocence and freshness, and believe in what they're doing. They make the effort, and you don't over-instruct them. Nothing's more rewarding for a filmmaker than when young actors listen and [then] come [up] with great results.

Jake Gyllenhaal (Jack Twist): I met with a [different] director about the movie years ago. At the time, I was a teen, so it wasn't a realistic prospect. I was immediately drawn to Brokeback Mountain because love stories haven't been told this way in a long time. Movies I've seen in recent years have avoided the struggles and the trials that it takes to actually be in love and keep that going. When I heard that Ang Lee was going to make it, I thought, "I have to do this movie."

Heath Ledger (Ennis Del Mar): I trusted that story in Ang's hands. I loved the script because it was mature and strong, and such a pure and beautiful love story. I hadn't done a proper love story [prior], and I find there's not a lo

Anne Hathaway (Lureen Newsome): An actor friend of mine said, "Read this script." I did, and it was a heartbreaking and very real love story. I thought, "I've got to be a part of this." I went to a bookstore and found Close Range. I read "Brokeback Mountain" first and then went back and read the rest of the stories. Annie Proulx revealed a part of American history to me that I didn't know existed. There's a line in the short story, and the screenplay: "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it." Although the story is Ennis and Jack's, and they're the best example of it, that line really applies to all the characters in the movie; it's a human truth.

Michelle Williams (Alma Beers): Initially, Alma has exactly what she wanted - what she's been raised to want all of her life; a family and a home, a husband and children. When she sees her husband and Jack together, she probably doesn't even know exactly how to identify it at first, 'cause it's so out of the realm of her consciousness, of her world. She's too afraid to speak [of] it, so she holds onto it and it boils and brews inside of her.

Marit Allen (costume designer): Ang wanted to reflect the reality of the story, the places, the people and their economic situations. Ang, [cinematographer] Rodrigo Prieto and myself all studied Richard Avedon's book Photographs of the American West. He took photographs in the 1960s, and revisited [the subjects] twenty years later.

Lee: Rodrigo [Prieto] is a great DP. He's very quick. I love his work from Alejandro González Iñárritu's movies; also from Alejandro's crew, I took [composer] Gustavo [Santaolalla]. The movie is poignant and stark, so we needed sparse music here and there, and his music fit perfectly. Each time we could not afford a song, he would write us one.

Judy Becker (production designer): Right from the start, Ang made it clear that he wanted Brokeback Mountain to be in a realistic setting, in order for the audience to believe in the characters. But you have to imagine a way to create reality on film in a way that's different from real life. In general, I try to let the sets be a naturalistic background to the actors. That's one of the ways in which you have to try to transform what reality is into something that becomes the reality of the movie.

Shane Madden (rodeo rider/technical advisor to film): I'm happily married to a guy. He means the world to me. I'm hoping the film can tell people: believe and respect who you are and not what everybody wants you to be.

Gyllenhaal: What really tears me apart is, Ennis and Jack are two people who actually found love. If you have love, you should hold onto it.

Ledger: Brokeback Mountain is a love story for this generation.

Lee: It could be my wishful thinking, but if the feelings we're portraying are real, if the actors believing what they're playing appear to be real, and emotion is created with the audiences watching, then maybe issues won't be [had]. Biases might disappear when you look into the heart of people. I hope that's the case with our love story.