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 Less
than three short months ago, Heath Ledger meticulously described his
sleepless nights and mental exhaustion as he wrestled with his role as
the "psychopathic schizophrenic" Joker in the upcoming Batman film. One
night he took the sleeping pill, Ambien, to little effect. He took a
second, slept for an hour, but then woke, his mind racing. "Last week I
probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told The New
York Times. "I just couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and
my mind was still going," he said, while openly admitting he also
"stressed out a little too much" about his role in the Bob Dylan film
I'm Not There. Yesterday, the 28-year-old Australian film star was found
dead, face-down and naked at the foot of his bed in his rented SoHo
apartment in Manhattan. There were prescription drugs, including
sleeping pills, by his bed. Only hours earlier, his Australian co-star
in I'm Not There, Cate Blanchett, was nominated for two Academy Awards.
Despite wide speculation about suicide, nobody yet knows what killed
Ledger, or what part drugs played. In Perth, his family insisted the
death was accidental. It is understood they will arrange for his body to
be flown home where he will be laid to rest. Ambien is marketed in
Australia as Stilnox, and has been linked with several dangerous side effects.
More than 500 people responded to a national drug reactions hotline last
year, reporting bizarre behavior after taking the drug.
Two months ago,
Australia's medicines regulator ordered that packs of Stilnox carry
warnings that the drug can cause people to walk, eat, drive or have
sexual intercourse in their sleep. They now also warn Stilnox can cause
rage reactions, confusion, agitation and hallucinations. In Manhattan,
police said the type of sedative found in Ledger's apartment was
uncertain. Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said the actor had an
appointment for a massage at the apartment and that his housekeeper
found him unconscious about 3.30 p.m. when she went to notify him of the
masseur's arrival. He was unresponsive and pronounced dead shortly
after. Mr. Browne stressed that the cause of death would not be known
until determined by a medical examiner. Mr. Browne denied early reports
that pills were scattered about the floor.
 The
TMZ.com website had quoted representatives of Ledger's family as saying
police had advised them that his death was entirely accidental. He was not a
suicidal type, they had said. The website added that an unnamed family
member said Ledger was ill with pneumonia. Police could not confirm
this. Ledger split last year from Michelle Williams, who played his wife
in Brokeback Mountain, for which he received an Oscar nomination for his
role as a gay cowboy. The couple had a daughter, Matilda, and lived
together in Brooklyn until their separation. The Perth model Sophie
Ward, whose supermodel sister Gemma was romantically linked with Ledger
during his trip home to spend Christmas with his family, told The West
Australian that Ledger appeared troubled when the trio spent time
together. "We went to the movies and just did normal stuff … but he was
a bit edgy," said Ms Ward, 22. "He couldn't really relax." She said he
was anxious and distressed about his relationship breakdown and
separation from Williams, but she did not believe claims he was battling
drug problems.
She believed his
recent problems stemmed from those relationship issues. "He said he
was going to London but was quite upset because he couldn't see his
daughter as much as he'd like to," she said. It is understood Ledger's
family heard of his death from a radio report yesterday morning. His
parents, Kim and Sally, and sister Kate emerged from his mother's home
in the Perth suburb of Attadale. Mr. Ledger read a brief statement about
the "very tragic, untimely and accidental passing of our dearly loved
son, brother and doting father of Matilda". He had been found
"peacefully asleep".
 "Heath
has touched so many people on so many different levels during his
short life that few had the pleasure of truly knowing him. He was a
down-to-earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving and selfless
individual who was extremely inspirational to many. Please now respect
our family's need to grieve and come to terms with our loss privately."
As recently as last month Ledger's stellar career seemed to be
continuing its upward trajectory as he was in London filming The
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, directed by Monty Python's Terry
Gilliam. Blanchett had said in a statement: "I'm thrilled by the [Oscar]
nominations but more profoundly saddened by the loss of Heath. I deeply
respected his work and always admired his continuing development as an
artist. My thoughts are with his family and close friends." In SoHo,
hundreds of media and onlookers gathered outside Ledger's five-storey
loft building. It was the kind of attention that infuriated Ledger in
life. A woman craned out of the window of an adjacent building to
photograph Ledger's shrouded body as it was wheeled to an ambulance.
Dozens more tried to capture the moment on mobile phone cameras. Across
the street a boy, barely into his teens, shouted: "I got it. I got it on
video!" Only once the morbidly curious drifted into the night did there
seem to be a moment of simple compassion. A Perth woman, Daleen Kupsch,
31, now living in lower Manhattan, said she had grown up in Morley, a
couple of suburbs away from Ledger's home of Guildford. He had only
recently been a popular visitor to the Guildford Hotel. "I am a big fan.
I feel so sorry for his little girl. I just saw him and his little girl
the other day. He seemed so happy."
And he was, apparently. In an interview about the film I'm Not
There with WJW-TV, Ledger struck a philosophical note when asked how
having a child had changed his life: "You're forced into, kind of,
respecting yourself more. You learn more about yourself through your
child, I guess. I think you also look at death differently. It's like a
catch 22: I feel good about dying now because I feel like I'm alive in
her, you know, but at the same hand, you don't want to die because you
want to be around for the rest of her life." Although Heath Ledger may
be gone, and certainly won't be forgotten, fans will still get to see
the actor one more time in 2008 when Christopher Nolan's Batman film The
Dark Knight hits theaters in June in which Ledger picks up where Jack
Nicholson left off in the famous role of The Joker.
After learning of
Ledger's death, we reached into the UPBEAT archives to find two older
interviews with Heath Ledger, who talked to the press back in 2004 for
his self-titled role as Australian folk hero Ned Kelly and 2005 for his
landmark role in Brokeback Mountain alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. Instead
of spending countless unnecessary hours listening to the mainstream
media speculate on the events surrounding Heath Ledger's death, we'd
rather pay tribute to Heath Ledger by giving fans insight into the man
in his own words.
Heath Ledger on the legend of Ned Kelly:
"Well, I knew enough about him, obviously from school and growing up in
Australia. He’s one of our few kind of iconic figures in history, so I
knew all the basics on his life. And I knew the obvious tales of him
wrapping himself up in lead and taking on 150 police. I knew that heroic
version of his tale. But I didn’t— I guess I never fully understood to
what extent he was a victim, a victim of circumstance, a victim of
society, you could say. That wasn’t too clear to me, certainly wasn’t
taught to us. That was what I had to read up on and discover for
myself."
On working with Orlando Bloom, their camaraderie, and the rest of the
cast:
"Yes, we did have camaraderie. It was great to work with such eye candy.
No, they were really, really, really great guys to work with and, apart
from Orlando, there was Lawrence Kimlen and Phillip Antony and Kerry
Condon. We were surrounded by some very good, young actors and, yeah, we
became a gang of such, as you do."
On trying to balance an acting career and spending time with family
and friends:
"Well, my general attitude has usually been [to] kick back, stay on the
couch and don’t leave the house, because I’m lazy. But this year I’m—
it’s going to be quite the diverse year. I mean, coming straight off
working with Terry Gilliam on The Brothers Grimm, I’m now going into—
I’m playing surf legend and surf shop owner, Skip Emblem in Lords of Dogtown with Catherine Hardwick, and Brokeback Mountain with Ang Lee.
And then I’m doing Casanova with Lasse Hallstrom, and then playing a
heroine addict in Australia in Candy, and so I’ve jammed this year. It’s
a pretty diverse year. It’s a year that is full of fear for me. It’s a
very scary one, a good one."
 On
the overall psychological toll of switching from a vibrant character in
such a short amount of time:
"I think that it has to do with allowing yourself enough preparation
time before all of it. Like right now and the next four weeks before I
start... So basically that’s what I’m doing right now, in the four weeks
before I go off to do the four jobs, is I’m kind of studying all four of
them right now and preparing myself for all four of them so I can then
forget about three, go do one, and then pick up where I left off on the
next one. I don’t know. It’s about reflex and trusting. And, also, if I
choose to do the role, I generally like to make sure that I can do it
from the first time I read it. I like to know that I somewhat have a
plan, anyway. I don’t like to just be going, ‘Oh, I’ll figure it out
later.’ I like to know. And how I figure that out is, I wouldn’t know
how to explain that to you."
On his career, taking more control of his own life, and whether or
not it all comes from a sense of rebellion:
"I guess so, but I honestly find that to be a necessity. I kind of had
to. You know, I didn’t really like where I was heading. And I didn’t, I
hadn’t, I didn’t really have a choice of that in the beginning. So it
was either follow it or follow someone else’s dream, or stop it and
follow your own. And it’s hard, it’s tough but it’s worth it, it really
is. And it’s paid off."
On what appealed to him about the script:
"Many things. Ang Lee attracted me to the script and then once I read
the script it was probably the most beautiful screenplay I’d ever read,
and I had a real lump in my throat. It felt like it was a story that
hadn’t been put on the screen, which is rare to come across. And so all
the elements were there. There was this perfect story, incredibly
complex characters and character for me to kind of play, or attempt to
play. And so I felt like I’d be crazy, essentially, to walk away from
it."
On what he learned about the gay culture after playing a gay
character:
"For one, it’s not an occupation... I could have actually taught Ennis
something about loving. Unlike Ennis, I enjoy love, I’m very expressive,
I’ve investigated love, and he didn’t. And I didn’t walk away, like,
suddenly going, ‘Oh geez, you know what? Wow, men and men, they can
express and they can love. Wow!’ I had an understanding of that. I never
feared that it existed and it was never really a huge issue of mine. And
so I really didn’t come out— it wasn’t some great revelation of mine
that this was possible, you know."
 On
what he liked about Ennis Del Mar:
"I don’t know, his potential, he had great potential to love. I think
the one time you really see the potential is with his kids, his
children, because that’s the one form of love he’s really allowed to
express, it’s not dangerous to him. And with his wife it just wasn’t
really love, it was just what he thought should be love, and it was more
of a
routine that he slipped into because it was conventional. It was
traditional, and obviously his love for Jack was totally forbidden and he hated
himself for it, he punished himself for it. Essentially he was a
homophobic man in love with another man. So that, I guess, I always had
faith in the love within him a lot more than he did. I think that’s what
all the characters found in him too, was the potential within this
masculine figure to be kind of vulnerable."
On whether falling in love with Michelle Williams was a hindrance
since their characters were falling apart:
"No, no, not at all. If anything it just made it more interesting. I
think it would have made it more boring if we were falling in love on
screen, you know. It would have been, like, just easy and obvious. We
were working against the odds here, it was out of our control. It was
just something that was very beautiful and deep and we’re both very
professional and we’re both there, from the beginning, with the same
goals and we wanted to do the best job possible and do justice to this
story. So yeah, not at all."
On whether he had to do a lot more housework with the baby's arrival:
"Yeah, happily. What else am I going to do? We’re so bloody helpless. In
the birthing process, you come out just realizing how stupid and weak
men are. I might as well not be in there, we’re about useless. It was
funny. When you walk out, it’s such an intimidating process watching or
witnessing how beautifully this primal kind of strength that women have.
It just exceeds anything that’s within men. And you just feel like
leaving there and going out and taking steroids and going to the gym,
and then starting a war, you know. And it just explains a lot about our
society. It’s like overcompensating for our lack of strength. Except I’m
not starting a war, I’m doing dishes."
 On
what kept him on the path to success:
"I don’t know. Growing up in Perth, Western Australia, you never feel
like you’re going to live beyond that city. You wake up and you go to
the beach, you do your homework, you’re just a kid. I never really cared
much for Hollywood or movies. I never watched movies... I wasn’t really
allowed to watch movies. I think the only film I was ever allowed to
watch was The Wizard of Oz and I watched that about a hundred bloody
times, probably for that reason. But the curiosity for filmmaking and
kind of expanding myself as an actor and my curiosity for people and
portraying them just has grown from simply being involved in the
industry. It was never a goal of mind as a kid. My mom and my dad, they
never pushed me into doing it. They hardly knew I was doing it. They
never really shined my cheeks and put on tap-dancing shoes and dragged
me to a dance studio. It was just something that I fell into in a clumsy
kind of way of slowly getting my coordination together and [then] I’ll
continue to do that, hopefully."
UB
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