Adam Sutton, the Australian gay cowboy who inspired the late actor Heath Ledger’s role in Brokeback Mountain, is forever grateful to Ledger for comparing Sutton to the landmark role.

“I was that character that Heath played in Brokeback Mountain – that repressed person inside,” Sutton said. “I couldn’t be myself. I hated the way I felt and the emotions I had inside. And then the progression of Brokeback, which helped me understand it (his sexuality) – it gave me the inspiration and confidence to be able to tell my story.”

That comparison from Ledger, coupled with the public’s curiosity about the travails of being a gay cowboy, fueled Sutton’s coming out – and a Sydney Morning Herald front-page story on Sutton titled “Meet Heath’s Mate, The Real Gay Cowboy” made his sexuality more public.

“I was pretty nervous about doing it [participating in the article],” Sutton told the Gay & Lesbian Times one day after his friend Ledger’s death. “And that was coming out publicly in a massive way. It was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders, because I finally told this story I was so afraid to, and accepted myself.”

If the friends from Down Under hadn’t met, Sutton’s closet door may not have been so far flung open.

The men struck up a friendship during filming of Ned Kelly in 2003. During a New Year’s Eve party after, Ledger mentioned how he’d just read the Brokeback Mountain script, and said it reminded him of Sutton.

After seeing the film in 2005, Sutton gained a new perspective on his own life.

“I could see in the character that Heath played a lot of reflections of myself and the way it was,” Sutton said. “I couldn’t hold eye contact with people and mumbled and wasn’t confident in being myself. So, seeing Brokeback was pretty confronting, pretty gut wrenching; but knowing that I had walked to the other side of that, come through all that, and now I’ve been able to be a role model for so many other people now. Heath was my role model there in the character that he played.”

Sutton fondly remembers his friend Ledger as a source of inspiration.

“The legacy that he gave me was courage and confidence, and I know that legacy will always stay in me, and I will be able to provide that onto others who need it,” Sutton said.

Sutton, similar to Ledger’s celluloid counterpart, has faced his share of adversity. He spent years loathing his sexuality.

“It builds this ball of negativity inside you, and this ball of hatred towards everything and off of everybody,” he said. “You can only do that for so long to yourself, and that bubble started to pop. I started to not hate my emotions and feelings towards myself, I started to embrace them and learn about them, and started to accept myself for who I was. It took it’s time.”

Though necessary, it was difficult for Sutton to accept himself. Sutton has become accustomed to pulling himself up by his bootstraps. In 1993, Sutton was charged with culpable driving under the influence causing death. The accident he caused killed a young man, Adam Gosling, and led to a prison stint. He harbored thoughts of suicide and after his release from prison he spent five years traveling from one end of Australia to the other, on a quest to discover who he was.

Sutton (along with Neil McMahon) has turned his tale into the 2007 autobiography, Say It Out Loud: The Journey of a Real Cowboy. The book followed on the heels of the Sydney Morning Herald story that set a five-year sales record for the paper, and a subsequent 2006 television documentary, “Since Adam was a Boy.”

Sutton has used the media to quell misconceptions that some have about gay cowboys and the lives they lead.

“I think a lot of people think that they don’t exist, for one,” Sutton said of gay cowboys. “Brokeback brought that to the forefront. It’s [the cowboy lifestyle] got that rural aspect to it; it’s got that macho, butch-like, draw of it to the land.”

As for the balance of living life as a gay man and living as a cowboy, Sutton says, “One thing that I am glad I have done is to be accepted in both stereotypes, and also break both stereotype molds. I’ve been able to combine those two stereotypes, and that’s been a really good thing.”

For Sutton, being a cowboy has always come naturally, due in part to his strong connection with horses, he said.

“I was sort of born into it in a way,” he said. “I’ve always had horses when I grew up, and we bought a property and always had them. I’ve always bonded with animals, horses foremost, and I have this unique connection with them, and they are a part of me.”

Now, with his life an open book, literally, Sutton says he hopes readers can learn from his trials, errors and ultimate redemption.

“It’s such a story of so many angles – like death, there’s prison in it, there’s Hollywood in it,” Sutton said. “There’s also the other side of all that – there’s acceptance and forgiveness. And I think that everyone picks up something different from it.

“In writing it, it was really confronting, because I had to go back to those dark moments in my life, where I wanted to end my own life. And, it was from that day, that I got to that frame of mind that I stood up and faced my own fears, and faced myself; and look forward, instead of looking down, and I’ve never looked back ever since.”

Now, Sutton is somewhat a role model, receiving “hundreds and hundreds of letters,” ranging from all walks of gay life, from people who appreciate Sutton’s openness.

“Some of the letters have been suicidal letters,” Sutton said. “I’ve received a letter from an 83-year-old guy on his death bed, who wanted to talk to someone about things he was never able to talk about to anybody – which was the way I felt. Knowing how your story is helping and providing support to people – that’s an amazing feeling and that’s my driving force.”

Next up for Sutton is joining fellow Aussie Olivia Newton-John on her Great Walk To Beijing in April.