Filmmaker Stephen Gaghan Shares New Details About Heath Ledger’s Tragic Death (Photo Credit – Wikimedia/IMDb)
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Heath Ledger is the actor who is still an iconic villain in cinema history. Ledger is known for playing the role of Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Unfortunately, he passed away a few months before the film’s release due to a drug overdose. After over a decade, Dolittle maker Stephen Gaghan shared new details from when Ledger passed away. Scroll below for more.
Besides the Nolan-directed film, he is known for performing in Brokeback Mountain and 10 Things I Hate About You. He passed away in January 2008 after consuming a lethal dose of prescription medicines, including OxyContin, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Unisom, and Restoril. A housekeeper discovered his lifeless body, and reportedly, a book by Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, was found on Heath’s nightstand. Gaghan was developing a movie on that book with Ledger. Hence, a draft of the film’s screenplay by the Oscar winner was next to him on the bed.
Author Malcolm Gladwell runs a podcast called Revisionist History, and it launched a limited series called ‘Development Hell.’ Stephen Gaghan spoke on the podcast about the day Heath Ledger passed away and how he eventually abandoned the film adaptation of Blink because Heath became very close to him, and they developed a real connection.
Stephen Gaghan revealed that he got a call from Heath Ledger’s father, Kim, when he arrived inside the Manhattan apartment after being informed of the actor’s death. Gaghan recalled, “They were there with the body, and our script was in bed with him, and your book was on the bedside table. I think my number was on the script like written. These guys, as you can imagine, are in shock, and they dialed that number, and I don’t know why.”
Gaghan added that he was at the airport going someplace and was accompanied by his wife when he got the call. He said, “I literally just collapse, never happened to me before or since. My feet went out from under me. I just literally sat down because I was like, what? The emotion, what they were going through, I should not have been a party to in any way really, and yet as a human or as somebody who just cares, I just was there, and I was listening, and my wife was looking at me.”
Stephen continued, “I remember her face and I was just like, I was speechless. I just listened and listened and listened. It was just really, really sad. And it’s still sad. For me, I just had to put a pin in it.” After Heath Ledger’s tragic demise, Gaghan said he stopped Blink’s film adaptation.
Ledger is still in everyone’s memories. While accepting his first Golden Globe award for Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan recalled the late actor in his acceptance speech. He also compared Cillian Murphy‘s transformation for the part to Heath’s when he essayed the role of Joker in The Dark Knight.
Heath won the posthumous Oscar for his performance as the Clown Prince of Crime in Nolan’s film.
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