Heath Ledger: The Roles of A Lifetime

Image credit: Jonathan Wenk

In January 2008, Ledger traveled to New York for a brief break from filming on Parnassus. On Jan. 22, he was found dead in his SoHo apartment. There was immediate speculation he had overdosed on illicit drugs, but autopsy reports ruled his death an accidental toxic combination of prescription painkillers, anti-anxiety medication, and sleeping pills.

Gilliam: I was in Vancouver, and there was a computer with a BBC website and it says, ''Heath Ledger found dead.'' My immediate response was, ''It's a f---ing Warner Bros. publicity stunt for the Joker!'' We kept looking at the computer thinking it was going to change. But it wouldn't go away.

Hardwicke: I was in a van in Oregon scouting a location we shot for Twilight. And my phone just exploded. And then you're just on the ground, weeping. At least I was outside in this beautiful place with the trees and the green and you could just try to connect with his spirit right then.

Schamus: It was one of those ''where were you on the day Kennedy was shot'' moments. I called Jake and remember wailing.

Oldman: I call it the cosmic s--- hammer. Just one of those things. I can't even say I ever remember seeing Heath smoking. It was a complete shock.

Gilliam: They tried so hard to pin [drug abuse] on him, but they couldn't because Heath was as clean as you could be. We know about the pills. But he had stopped smoking. Marijuana was no longer in his life, which he had enjoyed a bit. He wasn't drinking. Nothing. This was a body that had cleansed itself for over a year of anything.

Pecorini: He was so solid into keeping clean, it was quite stunning. I really think he died of a broken heart. I know it can sound very romantic, but it's very tragic. I think that's what killed him. (Pictured in I'm Not There)

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Early in his career, Heath Ledger fretted about being typecast as a young blond heartthrob. He played one on TV in his native Australia, and he made his Hollywood movie debut in 1999 as a cheeky Aussie hunk in 10 Things I Hate About You, a teen-friendly variation on The Taming of the Shrew. But Ledger wanted to do more, and go deeper.

Six years later, he showed just how deep he could go. In his career-high performance as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, the alluringly restless actor with the wary, old eyes seemed to have skinned everything extraneous from the shape of the conflicted man he played. His Ennis moved economically, with a minimum of talk that masked a maximum of hunger. Speaking in a mumbled Western drawl from way back in his throat, the bloke born in Perth, Western Australia, busted out of all conventions to play a Wyoming herder, a husband to a bewildered wife, a father, and a man sideswiped by the love and lust he felt for another man.

Ledger always had that coiled intensity in him — just watch him in The Patriot (2000). He was so eager to distance himself from cutie-boy roles that he readily hoisted a musket, fought the British redcoats, and accepted Mel Gibson as his father. In A Knight's Tale (2001), Ledger was under pressure to deliver his first big Hollywood role — often a mixed blessing for young actors — and he managed to charm, even if it meant flirting once more with his Tiger Beat cred as a medieval serf-turned-bitchin' knight. By Ned Kelly (2003), about the 19th-century Australian outlaw, the actor had begun to more confidently explore the real dark side of male lawlessness. This was an actor, not just somebody playing dress-up.

I happened to love Ledger in the hastily dismissed Casanova (2005), largely because of his wit in the title role. And while I loathed the glam-grubbiness of the addict pic Candy (2006), I couldn't take my eyes off him for the abandon with which he inhabited such sickly skin. For now we can savor a fully engaged Ledger who vanishes into one of the six imagined ''Bob Dylans'' in Todd Haynes' adventurous biopic I'm Not There. The achievement, and the movie title, are all the more poignant for what they tease of future excellence, interrupted.

See more from EW on the life and career of Heath Ledger::
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Heath Ledger: A PopWatch Tribute and Reader Comments