On January 22nd 2008, a very shocking event took place. The very popular actor, Heath Ledger, was found dead on his New York apartment in SoHo. I read about it a couple of days later and was rather shocked. He was a very young man and there was a mystery around his death. A few weeks later, it was found that his death was caused due to accidental overdose of prescribed medication (my source is IMDB). He was an actor i really admired and never took the chance to take a look at his bio. After a whole year, i feel like writing this small post on his memory since i liked him alot. The info below are actually a small sum of what i found on the net (especially IMDb) on him.
I originaly saw him on the movie “A knight’s tale” (2001) where he played the part of Sir William Thatcher (or as he was also named in the movie Ulrich Von Lichtenstain). I like middle-age movies and this one combined that era with today’s music and style. I think that this part must have been among his best ones of all times. Moreover, in my opinion, it reflects, in a way, his way of evolving into a Hollywood superstar.
He is from Australia and started humbly trying to cast for many movies. His general approach was to do new things and turn down anything he thought was not worth it. He didn’t like repeating things that have gone well just because it would be the easy thing to do. He is quoted saying:
I only do this (acting) because I’m having fun. The day I stop having fun, I’ll just walk away. I wasn’t going to have fun doing a teen movie again…. I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life….I don’t want to spend the rest of my youth doing this in this industry. There’s so much I want to discover.
– Vanity Fair (August 2000)
One of his final parts was the “Joker” on the Batman movie “The Dark Knight“. He died during the post-production state of the movie and thus it is dedicated in his memory. For this part he is nominated for an Oscar on this year’s Oscar awards and it is believed he will win it.
On his personal life, he has a daughter with Michelle Williams (very well known from “Dawson’s Creek“). They had a very nice relationship but had a divorce a while back before his death. Their jobs took them apart as it seems to be. Everybody had a nice word to say about him and he was really loved among the actors and crew. I would like to say that i am truly sorry about his death and i believe that the movie making bussiness lost a valuable member and a great actor. Rest in peace…
Believe it or not, its been more than 6 months now I guess since I wanted to watch “The Dark Knight” just for this man (I never liked Batman series) and still I have not been able to watch it 🙁
@Raju: I don’t like batman either and i haven’t seen that one too. But i think that the “A knight’s tale” movie is worth watching and the one to depict his talent…
He has been nominated for oscar this year, so it “MUST” be one of his best performances ever!
@Raju: Well man as i said i haven’t seen the movie so i can’t judge…
OOps seems like you guyz missed the Fun by not watching a movie generating more than 500 million dollars and selling 8 tickets per second on the release month 😛
Go watch it,the movie is spread all over the Internet…
I liked Heath Ledger for the way he enacted,he was an Australian decent actor until he was featured on “Dark Knight” 😉
I did not care for The Dark Knight – I thought it should have had a stricter rating as I found it creepy and disturbing.
My favorite movie of his was The Brother’s Grimm. It’s not a middle ages story but it’s a great fantasy movie. Matt Damon is in it too. I’m not sure if it was Heath Ledger’s best role but it was my favorite.
I can’t believe it’s already been a year since he died.
🙁 I love “The Dark Knight”.
Personally I loved the Dark Knight, but then I like most action type movies. His part as the Joker was unbelievable and whoever takes on this role in future movies will find it hard to beat.
i love this movie. it’s one of very interesting movies i’ve ever seen. 🙂