Family, friends and co-stars reflect on the actor’s life, work and tragic final days when Heath Ledger won a posthumous Golden Globe for his portrayal of the Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight, his mum shared with WHO her son’s take on the disturbing role.
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“He said, ‘I’ve never enjoyed anything so much as working on that set and doing that movie,’” said Sally Bell in 2009. “There was no ‘dark side’ for him – he used to roll up to the set on a skateboard. And he enjoyed the cast and crew. He absolutely loved it.”
Less than three months after filming that Oscar-winning role, Ledger, 28, died in his bed at his rented Manhattan apartment, shattering his loved ones and shocking the world. New York City’s chief medical examiner found the Australian actor’s accidental death on January 22, 2008 was the result of “abuse of prescription medications”.
Fifteen years later, the father-of-one’s legacy lives on through the Heath Ledger Scholarship (an award for aspiring actors), and a vast body of work that includes his groundbreaking role in Brokeback Mountain and his first star billing in the Aussie favourite, Two Hands.
“Heath was great to work with,” his Two Hands co-star Susie Porter told WHO. “He never mucked about, he was serious about his acting and he really wanted to hone his craft.”
Ledger’s storied career began with TV roles, including in Home and Away, before he nailed an audition in the late ’90s for Two Hands director, Gregor Jordan. “I’d heard of Heath,” Jordan told WHO, “and there was word out that he was something special.”
Jordan had a US casting agent tape an audition of Ledger playing Two Hands’ hero Jimmy – a young man lured into Sydney’s criminal underworld. “He was fantastic,” recalls Jordan. “As soon as I saw the tape, I knew he was the one.”
At first, Ledger had the jitters on set.
“It was Heath’s first feature film as a lead and he was a little bit nervous, he took a little bit of time to relax into it,” recalls Jordan. It was veteran actor Bryan Brown – who memorably played the larrikin crime boss in the film – who helped the future Oscar winner. “Bryan took him under his wing,” said Jordan. “But it was pretty clear Heath was a natural actor.”
After finishing Two Hands, Ledger scored his first Hollywood role, starring opposite Julia Stiles in the 1999 rom-com, 10 Things I Hate About You. Next, he starred alongside fellow Australian Mel Gibson in The Patriot. But Jordan says Ledger’s best work was ahead of him.
“I visited him while he was working on The Dark Knight,” recalled Jordan, who teamed up again with Ledger for 2003’s Ned Kelly. “The role was full-on, but he was totally into it.”
In his personal life, however, Ledger was struggling, according to some. In September 2007, he had broken up with his partner, actress Michelle Williams. The pair, who met while filming Brokeback Mountain in 2004, shared a daughter, Matilda, nearly two. “He missed his little girl – he desperately wanted to see her and hold her and play with her,” friend Gerry Grennell, a dialect coach, told People in 2018. “He was desperately unhappy, desperately sad.”
Grennell, who lived and worked with Ledger while he was shooting what would be his last film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, said the actor was “exhausted, emotionally and physically”.
At the time of his death, Ledger was suffering a chest infection and insomnia, and had taken a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs, including the pain killer oxycodone, sleeping medication and anti-anxiety medication.
Yet according to his sister, Kate, who was one of the last people to speak to Ledger, there was no indication his mood was low. On the phone from Perth, Kate warned her brother not to mix his medication and sleeping pills. But Ledger brushed it off.
“I was cooking dinner … and we were laughing,” she told People. “Then he said, ‘I’ve got to go, and I’ll call you at 8.30 in the morning.’ That was our last conversation. I said, ‘Okay, I love you.’ And that was it. It’s heartbreaking.”
It’s a loss that still looms large for his Australian family and daughter Matilda, now 17. “Heath has left us wiser, more connected and less selfish,” Kate previously told WHO. “We cherish his beautiful girl and all the memories that we have. Like anyone who has lost a family member, his loss is still enormous and we feel it every day.”
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