Heath was one of a kind
GEMMA Ward's rise from schoolgirl to supermodel was like a fairytale. As she prepares for her stage debut, she talks for the first time about her relationship with Heath Ledger.
In the lead up to the 1997 school production of Hansel and Gretel, the most beautiful girl in the class waited for her role to be read out. Of course she’d be Gretel. No one else could play it like her and everyone knew she desperately wanted the part.
So, when she was given her role, it was as if she’d been handed a poisoned apple. "You," said the teacher, "will be the witch."
The teacher, you see, already knew the most beautiful girl, Gemma Ward, was much more than a pretty face.
Fairytales and nursery rhymes are just that. Real life is not so simple. There’s always a story behind a beautiful face, and the girl with the delicately mesmerising features is now peeking out again, after three years in a self-imposed tower. It’s time for her to step out from behind the magazine cover
and write the next chapter.
Ward is a model – a supermodel – and it’s a career she hugs with pride. But her true passion was born in that school play in Perth. A clumsy production, no doubt, but it’s where she learnt that it’s the person inside the costume that really counts. Ward fell in love with the magic of make-believe.
"I was onstage for the first time when I was seven," she recalls in a husky, happy voice. "From seven until I was about nine, it was probably more to do with being onstage and having the attention."
But the 23-year-old admits it was that "very wacky teacher" who steered her in the right direction.
"I'd been acting for a couple of years and it was something I'd decided I wanted to do with my life. But when she didn’t cast me as Gretel, I was devastated.
"So I approached her and said, 'I don't know why you didn’t give me Gretel. There was nobody who wanted it as much as me.' I was precocious about it. But she said to me, 'Gemma, I gave you this role because I knew it would be the hardest in the play, and also the most rewarding.'
"She was right. I immersed myself in the whole character – I got the voice right and the cackle, and it became a character study. That was the moment I said, 'OK, now I know what acting is, now I know what this is really about.'"
You've no doubt heard of Ward. She’s the girl with the Cinderella story. Discovered by a modelling agent in 2002, the then 14-year-old soon had the fashion world in a spin with her ethereal, wide-eyed look and gangly grace.
Within a year, she was in Italy meeting Prada designer Miuccia Prada. At 16, she was on the covers of US Vogue and Time magazine’s Style & Design issue. At 17, she was the famous face of Calvin Klein’s Obsession Night perfume billboards. In 2006, she was earning $25,000 to stride the catwalk, and 2007 saw Forbes rank her the 10th highest paid model in the world, with an annual haul of $3.4 million. The glass slipper was obviously a perfect fit.
But, as she sits today in her New York apartment, rugged up against the cold winter's night and gazing at the giant map of the world that dominates one wall, she's the first to admit that a fairytale can fracture. And Ward's clock struck midnight with the untimely death of fellow Perth artist Heath Ledger.
The two Aussies met in New York in November 2007. "We were both struggling with things that I won't get into and we bonded over that," she says. "At first I said, 'Listen, my mum’s living with me right now and I'm going through a hard time. I'm not interested in having a serious relationship,' and he said, 'Let's just be there for each other through these hard times.'
"And we developed a relationship and started seeing each other."
That Christmas, they returned to WA and met each other's families. Less than a month later, on January 22, 2008, Ledger died from an accidental prescription drug overdose.
Ward mourned in private, returning to Perth for his funeral and wake, but respectfully slipping away after the church service.
"I've taken a break from the media spotlight for the past few years and it was spurred by Heath's death," she says pensively. "[But] I'd like to clarify that I was kind of taking a break from many things in my life. I made a commitment to myself to address some things that were coming up to do with Heath's passing and also things that were troubling me before we met.
"I didn’t know how long it would take – I didn’t know if it would solve anything – but I set out to really focus inside myself."
During most of our conversation, the striking model laughs. And laughs. But when talking about Ledger, she speaks with deep feeling.
"He was an incredible person, unlike anybody I’ve ever met – and will meet ever again," she says. "He was one of a kind and extremely sensitive, extremely open, extremely honest, extremely generous, extremely energetic. He had time for everybody, no matter who you were. He was such an amazing talent."
With all that still weighing heavily on her, Ward is looking to the future, and finally satisfying her urge to act onstage. This Christmas, a fairy godmother came calling, in the form of Melissa Cantwell, artistic director of the Perth Theatre Company.
Cantwell had long been a fan of Ward’s creative side and believed she was a perfect fit for the PTC’s launch play of 2011, The Ugly One, a contemporary drama that centres on society’s narcissistic fascination with physical beauty. Ward read the script in an hour and was smitten.
"It's something I’ve dreamt of for many, many years," she says. "And this script is so brilliant and witty and funny and perfect for me. I can’t wait for the audience’s reaction."
With rehearsals and performances in her hometown, she'll be back where the seduction of the stage began, among family. Her father, Gary, is a doctor and her mum, Claire, a nurse. Older sister Sophie ("my best friend, absolutely") models and writes, and she has younger twin brothers, Oscar and Henry.
"I have a very creative family," Ward says. "My dad plays 12-string slide guitar. My brother plays electric guitar, my sister plays piano... she also writes and makes movies."
"It's phenomenal. I think that if I’m not creating, I’m not really doing what I should be doing. I’m just so grateful that’s how I was raised."
Onstage, she'll be flexing the acting muscles honed in her recent Hollywood stint as Tamara, queen of the mermaids, alongside Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which hits cinemas in May.
"Tamara is the typical siren," she says. "And what I found interesting about the mermaids in this movie is that the producers stayed true to mermaid mythology. The original story of The Little Mermaid was very gruesome – a lot of these old fairytales are."
It’s a testament to her skill that Ward can play a manipulating mermaid yet, throughout most of our conversation, she’s laughing.
"As a child, I was a clown; I didn’t hesitate to make a fool of myself. I loved to take on wacky characters," she says, admitting she’s a big fan of movies so bad, they’re good.
"I think if you can make fun of yourself, it's a great thing, and I find that very appealing."
Maybe that's why she’s so comfortable in her own skin. During her early modelling days, international fashion news was dominated by the Italian campaign to banish schoolgirls and skeletal waifs from Milan’s catwalks. Today, debate bubbles along as to what actually is the perfect size, and Ward looks on contentedly.
"I wasn’t a child [when I started out]; I was a teenager," she says. "I wasn’t all that innocent, either. I wasn't taken advantage of – I knew what I was doing."
"I feel very powerful in myself now. I’m happy with where I am and I’m excited for my life and excited to embrace all aspects of it. I’m definitely not [regretful]. I look back on everything I’ve done with pride."
And what about the future? Say, 10 years' time? Will she still be in her New York tower or back in Australia, that land far, far away?
"Gosh, 10 years!" she squeals. "I'll be 33! My health is very important, so I hope I’m still here. The second most important thing to me is family. I hope, one day, to start my own but, at the same time, I hope I’m still surrounded by my own family," she says, adding that she’s inspired by her parents' outlook on life. "I'd raise [my children] just like we’ve been raised."
And, of course, they’ll all live happily ever after.
, never seen that pic, and the new pics of her are gorgeous as ever!
