“They would always make the effort to find a way through,” Ang Lee said of working with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal on 2005’s Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee says that “sometimes there was friction” between the film’s leads Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal on the set of the 2005 romance movie.

Lee, 68, recently recalled working with the two actors on Brokeback Mountain to Empire magazine, telling the outlet that he cherished “getting to witness Heath and Jake develop that relationship between their characters.”

“I saw it unfold right in front of my eyes, from rehearsal all the way to filming,” he told the outlet, noting that the late Ledger, who died in 2008 at age 28, “was always looking after” Michelle Williams after she broke her knee ahead of filming.

“When it came to Jake, Heath had a very different attitude towards their work. Sometimes there was friction – not quarreling, but a clash of styles,” the director noted of the on-set relationship between Ledger and Gyllenhaal, now 41.

“Sometimes I would mediate that, but they were both good in different ways,” Lee added. “They would always make the effort to find a way through.”

Lee also recalled that Ledger “knew the character of Ennis deeply” and rarely needed specific direction on set while filming the movie, which depicts a complicated romantic relationship between his and Gyllenhaal’s characters over several decades.

“In his heart, I think Heath knew the character of Ennis deeply. On a technical level, he took direction very well, but worked alone,” Lee told Empire of working with Ledger. “He’s not someone you really needed to talk to a lot, because he was very independent. For me, if the result is right, then I’m happy. If it’s not, I could tell him, and he would work something else out.”

“So Heath’s aura powers the whole story,” Lee said elsewhere in the piece, speaking to Ledger’s character’s repressed personality in the film. “He did a lot of preparation, mostly on his own. And he often surprised me with what he brought to his work.”

In April, Gyllenhaal shared details of the relationship he formed with Ledger while making the movie as he reflected on his career for an interview Vanity Fair.

“You know, the relationship, I think between me and Heath while we were making this movie was something that was based on a profound love for a lot of people that we knew and were raised by in our lives and a deep respect for their love and their relationship,” Gyllenhaal said.

The Ambulance star recalled Ledger’s “consummate devotion to how serious and important” the characters’ bond was in the film.

“One of the things I really remember about the process after the movie came out was Heath never wanting to make a joke,” Gyllenhaal told the outlet.

“Even as I think culturally, there were many jokes being made about the movie or poking fun at and things like that. And his consummate devotion to how serious and important the relationship between these two characters was.”