Brian J. Robb - Heath Ledger: Hollywoods Dark Star

People always feel compelled to sum you up, to presume that they have you and can describe you. Thats fine. But there are many stories inside of me and a lot I want to achieve outside of one flat note.

Heath Ledger

O n the afternoon of 22 January 2008, in a vast SoHo apartment in New York City, the light of a rising star flickered and failed.

Heath Ledger, only 28-years-old, had long since earned an unusual dual status as both movie heartthrob and serious thespian. Hed reached a fork in his career rare for one who had originated so far outside the Hollywood firmament, when he could have chosen the route to either international superstardom or complete mastery of his craft. Maybe even both.

There was no doubt among those who witnessed his recent work that the path less-trodden beckoned. With an increasing number of risk-taking, bravura performances to his name, Ledger seemed on the cusp of elevating himself well beyond the 1990s generation of Hollywood hotties he had once been associated with perhaps becoming the stuff of screen legend.

But fate would decree that, though Heath Ledger would indeed take his place among the Hollywood pantheon, it would not be within his own lifetime.

His was the first unexpected celebrity death of the Internet age, where news travels instantly around the world, feeding a ceaseless 24-hour hunger for information. As a result, during the initial stages of the investigation into the circumstances of his passing, much misinformation was presented as fact, and speculation as to the cause of death and Ledgers lifestyle was rife.

Heath was hailed as various things, from the new Mel Gibson to the new Marlon Brando. He was a poster boy for heroic action movies like A Knights Tale and a thoughtful actor who played minor roles in art-house movies like Monsters Ball and Im Not There. Even during his beginnings in the clever but ultimately disposable teen flick 10 Things I Hate About You, Heath harboured artistic ambitions that Hollywood seemed ultimately unable to fulfil. Despite his teen movie start and lack of formal training, Ledger grew into a serious actor, someone who wanted to be challenged by his craft and to lose himself in his roles.

I was eighteen-years-old, he remembered of his start in American movies. The idea of being an Australian from Perth and getting offered a movie with Touchstone Pictures? I was like, Who gives a fuck? Put me in your movie! I thought, If I dont take this, maybe nothing will ever happen.

Despite his enthusiasm, Heath was not simply dazzled by the offer of a big part in a studio movie. He knew it would give him his start, maybe even put him on the map, but he had bigger ambitions and he also knew that he could only rely on himself and his own innate talents to realise them. It still often feels like a whole load of bullshit, he admitted of the film industry, and just acknowledging that puts me at ease. When I first worked in the industry, it seemed so unbelievably foreign and surreal. The differences between good and bad people were so extreme. The way some people treated others, or held themselves so falsely high, disgusted me, and I promised myself Id never become like that.

The young actor quickly took stock of Hollywood and didnt much like what he saw. Hard as it was to resist, Ledger wanted to avoid being sucked into that superficial and profit-driven way of life. From 18 to 22, I was alone, living in LA with a bunch of friends, partying. I dont know if I knew, or cared to know, what I was capable of back then. I guess Im just starting to, for lack of a better word, care more, he said of his need to move beyond teen roles and into challenging adult parts.

Movie executive Amy Pascal was supervising production of The Patriot when she singled Heath out for stardom on a scale he scarcely couldve imagined or wanted. You always know when you meet somebody whos going to be a movie star, because they sparkle, she told Interview magazine. As much as Heath sometimes tried to hide his sparkle, it just came through. It was that boyish, sexy, misunderstood, James Dean thing that we are always looking for. He had it.

Heath had been snapped up by ber-agency CAA, and was being represented by Steve Alexander. He saw the same potential in the new signing as Amy Pascal. When Heath first came into my office, he was seventeen-years-old. He had all the characteristics of a man, and yet he was a boy. But you could just feel that there was something important going on right away. Everyone who met him had that impression of him.

Amy Pascal was instrumental in giving Heath leading-man status in Brian Helgelands witty period adventure movie A Knights Tale. Ledger knew that to get on in the movie industry, there would be sometimes undesirable demands made of him, and that this early in his career, he was in no position to turn down a could-be blockbuster in favour of the more modest, serious movies he was really interested in. He did, later in life, consider what might have happened to him if hed snubbed Pascal and the offer from Columbia. [Id] probably [be] in drug rehab, or living a layabout life in Miami, he speculated. I knew I was being offered a deal with the devil. I didnt trust it, it felt short-term, they werent going to take responsibility for me if I fried. I also felt professionally cheapened like, Is that all they think Im capable of.

Despite his reservations about the film, and his major problems with the work required of him to promote it, A Knights Tale put Ledger on the movie-star map. Here was a new talent, and big things were expected of him. The tragedy of Ledgers short life is that he didnt always fulfil these expectations, either those others had for him or those he held for himself. Throughout his career, he was featured in a string of box-office or artistic failures, including historical epic The Four Feathers, horror thriller The Order, and skateboarding movie Lords of Dogtown. I know theres a master narrative out there that says Heath was in these terrible movies, but I beg to differ, said Brokeback Mountain producer James Schamus.

Actress Naomi Watts was romantically involved with Ledger on-and-off over the course of two years, and she knew that the path mapped out for him by movie executives was not one he wanted to follow. At first, people were trying to shape him as this kind of teenage hunk. And thats so not what he wanted. It was something that he was trying to escape into the world of real artistry. When I met him, he was just turning that corner in his work.

Ledger proactively destroyed his manufactured career, feeling he had to be seen to fail in some big movie before hed be allowed to go off and do his own thing artistically. It was the only way the young actor could see to escape from the teen idol tag that was attached to him. It was like I diverted off the map and took a back road to the place I wanted to get to, he said, describing his risky route to artistic achievement. Im on a journey. Im on a walkabout [an Australian Aboriginal coming-of-age ritual]. A lot of people think ambition or success, and they think dollars My success is getting underneath that. At the end of the day, thats the only thing youre going to carry with you when you die.