Australian actor Heath Andrew Ledger was a superstar who was
still learning how to live in the fishbowl of constant media
attention.
Even as he garnered accolades for his acting in movies such as
Ang Lee’s 2005 Brokeback Mountain, the 28-year-old
struggled to deal with the promotion side of the business.
His relationship with the paparazzi photographers and his
blantant dislike of interviews only encouraged the attention of
media outlets keen to feed the market for celebrity news.
It got to the point where he was forced to move from Bronte
Beach, in NSW, back to the US after being acused of spitting on a
photographer in 2004. Ledger denied he had ever spat on anyone.
The incident led to some photographers getting their revenge by
squirting him with water at the Sydney red carpet premier for
Brokeback Mountain in 2006.
“That broke my heart,” he said.
“They obviously wanted me to punch and swear at them, looking a
big bad idiot, but I was crushed.
“I had to introduce the film, but I could barely speak.
“I went straight home to Bronte, got into the bathroom and broke
down.”
He once described walking down the red carpet as a “surreal”
experience.
“Like diving into an Olympic pool, swimming the length
underwater, then emerging gasping for breath,” he said.
“It’s so noisy that it’s quiet, you can’t hear; the flashlights
are so blinding that it’s dark, you can’t see.”
Ledger was born in Perth in 1979 and his parents divorced when
he was 11 years old.
He spent the next few years shuttling between his parents’ new
homes as he attended the private Perth school Guildford Grammar.
Both his parents remarried.
He said he was “more concerned with girls and surfing than
anything else” during those years.
After auditioning for number of roles while at school he was
cast in a brief cameo in the obscure Clowning Around in
1992.
He left school at 16 and his first starring role was in a
short-lived pay-television drama Roar.
He came to attention locally after his starring role in the
1999 Australian movie Two Hands in which he
played a small-time criminal.
He was nominated for an Australian Film Institute award for best
actor for the role.
In that year he also got his big Hollywood break, when he
starred opposite Julia Stiles in the romantic comedy 10 Things
I Hate About You.
He confirmed his star status with roles in The Patriot
(2000), Monster’s Ball (2000) and A Knight’s Tale
(2001).
Years later he would comment ruefully about his next two roles,
as the leading men in Ned Kelly (2003) and
Casanova (2005).
“I completely missed the boat on Casanova and I really
feel I shat all over the head of Ned Kelly,” he said.
His next role was his biggest and most controversial - a gay
cowboy in Brokeback Mountain - would cement him as a
serious actor.
He won a Golden Globe for best actor for the role and was
nominated for an Academy Award.
Ledger said he described how he developed his nuanced role in
the film in 2006.
“I work from inside out - thoughts and emotions first, and then
the face follows,” he said.
It was during the filming of the movie that Ledger, who had been
linked to a string of actresses, began dating fellow actress
Michelle Williams.
“Michelle was coming through a difficult phase,” he said.
“She had no idea how beautiful she is, how talented.
“Her gaze was downcast…she’s been acting professionally since
she was eight, and going to auditions - and never being sure why
you’re rejected or accepted makes you insecure and vulnerable.”
The pair had a daughter, Matilda Rose, in October, 2005. Ledger
and Williams were engaged for a time but broke up last
year.
Having a child changed Ledger. He even implied Matilda’s birth
meeant he was ready to die.
“Having a child changes every aspect of your life - for the
better, of course,” he said earlier this year.
“The sacrifices are large but what you get in return is even
bigger than the sacrifices you make.
“I feel in a sense ready to die because you are living on in
your child.”
In 2006 Ledger starred in the Australian movie Candy, about a
young couple dealing with heroin. The film also starred Australians
Geoffrey Rush and Abbie Cornish.
Ledger had learned to use his discomfort with dealing with media
in his film roles.
In last year’s Bob Dylan bio-pic I’m Not There, six
actors play the musician at different phases of his life.
Ledger said that fellow Australian, Cate Blanchett, who also
plays Dylan during another part of his life “was remarkable”.
In the movie Ledger plays a Dylan, appropriately, who is
struggling to cope with the adulation and attention of the
world.
He said that he could see that, like Dylan, he might not
have handled the attention in the best way.
“It was in my formulating years, late teens to early 20s,” he
said of his various encounters with paparazzi.
“And so, you know, I definitely kind of made mistakes, and I was
flawed like anyone and they were just less forgiving in
Australia.”
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