Just days before the one-year anniversary of Heath Ledger's death, colleagues of the actor — who won a posthumous Golden Globe on Sunday — remember him in an article published on Entertainment Weekly's Web site Friday (January 16). Since the news broke that Ledger had suddenly died of an accidental overdose in his SoHo loft in New York City last January 22, relatively few friends and colleagues of the actor have spoken about it. Now, in the wake of the anniversary, they are sharing with Entertainment Weekly some of their fondest memories of the actor.
While he's more commonly lauded for his appearances in films like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Dark Knight," for a generation of girls he will always be the rebellious teen heartthrob Patrick Verona from "10 Things I Hate About You."
"Heath always seemed so mature," co-star Julia Stiles said. "I got the sense he was averse to becoming any kind of teen idol. I think he felt like '10 Things' had more substance, but he anticipated that if he did more movies like this, he'd get stuck doing teen romantic comedies."
Soon, he would star in an array of films, from epic period pieces like "The Patriot" or more intense fare like "Monster's Ball." And he wanted to prove that despite his youth, he could call the shots on his career.
"He wanted to try something different, something where the movie wasn't resting on his shoulders," "Monster's Ball" director Marc Forster said. "The one thing he said was, 'I'm not going to participate in the promotion of the movie. I'm just going to come in and focus on the acting.' ''
"[Ledger] was his own man," Mel Gibson recalled. "He was going to do what he was going to do. He was looking for a way to fulfill himself in his art and in who he was. He didn't have the cart before the horse."
Terry Gilliam, who worked with Ledger on two occasions, including the last film the actor worked on, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," remembered a different side of Ledger.
"He was obsessed with his daughter [Matilda]," he said. "She became the center of his thoughts. He would drag her up to my house in London. Here's Heath, Academy Award nominee, and he'd just grab his daughter, stick her in a backpack, hop on the [subway] and come up to the house. Nobody would have thought, 'There's Heath Ledger!' He was just a guy with a kid."
Meanwhile, "Dark Knight" co-star Gary Oldman said he had initial concerns about working with Ledger on the film.
"I kind of raised my eyebrow at the casting," he said. "But any concerns that one may have had vanished when you got on the set with him. I did a couple of scenes with Heath in the first leg of the shoot in London. I called a friend and he said, 'How's Heath?' I said, 'He's breathtaking. He's going to be astounding.' I could tell just working for five minutes with him.
"If Heath does get an Oscar nomination," he added, "I can just picture him up there, looking down and going, 'F---!' "
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