Yes, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Heath Ledger's lover in the upcoming "Brokeback Mountain," but he refuses to call it a gay love story.

"That's a simple way of putting it, I think, 'cause I don't think I would be able to do this movie if it was a gay love story," Gyllenhaal said recently. "That's not what it's about to me. The movie is a story about two people not being able to love. And if it's with a guy or with a girl, it doesn't matter."

Coming off "The Day After Tomorrow" (see "Jake Gyllenhaal Raises Environmental Awareness By Running Away From Stuff"), Gyllenhaal was looking for a romantic movie when he came across "Brokeback Mountain," based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, who also wrote "The Shipping News."

"I was looking for a story that was actually about love, because I read scripts every day that are about, like, 'Love has no boundaries' and 'Love is universal,' and all these things that are now so cliché, Nike can just pick 'em up and use them as a slogan," Gyllenhaal said. "My generation, I think, doesn't understand it. I know so many kids my age who can't have any relationship at all — and I can only speak for people of my age, though I do see people of all ages not being able to have relationships — because we misunderstand the idea of love. That's what this movie's about. It's not about two guys going at it."

Still, Gyllenhaal and Ledger do get intimate in the movie, which will mark a rare occasion when two Hollywood hunks lock lips on the big screen. The emphasis, however, will not be on their physical relationship.

"[Director] Ang Lee told me that he wanted to make a movie that families could go see, so I think that's what he's going to do," Gyllenhaal said. "I walked out of 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'The Ice Storm,' 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,' 'Pushing Hands,' 'Hulk' always feeling good. I always have when I walked out of an Ang Lee movie. And I think that the same thing will happen with this movie. And all of us are not in the interest of making anything shocking. It's a story about love, that's our clear intention through the whole thing. It's not a story about sex."

In the movie, Gyllenhaal and Ledger play ranch hands who meet one summer on a Wyoming ranch. The men remain close but go on to live drastically different lives, with Gyllenhaal becoming a famous rodeo cowboy and Ledger remaining a ranch hand. Both men also marry, to characters played by Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams, respectively. Anna Faris and Randy Quaid also co-star.

"It's a huge story that spans over 20 years," Gyllenhaal said. "It's going to be epic."

Before "Brokeback Mountain" opens next year, Gyllenhaal will hit theaters alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins in "Shakespeare in Love" director John Madden's "Proof."

"I play a mathematician, which is ridiculous because I am horrible at math," Gyllenhaal said of the movie, which is based on a Broadway production. "Anthony Hopkins plays one of my professors — he dies at the beginning of the movie, and there are a lot of flashbacks, which is how he's in it — and I'm trying to search for this famous proof that I think he wrote, and it turns out that his daughter actually wrote it, and we have a love story."

After "Brokeback Mountain" finishes shooting this summer, Gyllenhaal will resume talks with Kevin Smith about starring in his "Green Hornet" movie.

"I'm just waiting for the script, to read it and see if I like it, and that's all it's about for me," he said. "The Green Hornet as a character is amazing, but if the story doesn't work, I don't wanna do it, 'cause I know people don't wanna see it if it sucks. But I don't think it will."

Gyllenhaal is also in theaters this summer in a re-release of 2001's "Donnie Darko," which the actor said is the project closest to his heart of any he’s ever done.

"Movies like that do not usually get a second chance, and thank God for Jesus Christ, 'cause New Market had 'The Passion of the Christ' and they also had 'Donnie Darko,' and now they have a lot of money and they can market 'Donnie Darko,' " Gyllenhaal said.

"I'm really happy that we have a second opportunity to have people see it. ... There are 20 minutes added on to it and [writer and director] Richard Kelly recut the ending with kind of a new take. ... This movie keeps living on, and it's cool because our hearts are in it."