Heath Ledger: Fallen Star

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Later that year, Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain would redefine his career beyond anyone's imagining. As Ennis Del Mar, a laconic cowboy who begins an impassioned and ultimately tragic love affair with the more gregarious Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), Ledger delivered a performance that shattered stereotypes many moviegoers might have had about homosexuality and helped propel the film from a potentially niche-market ''gay cowboy movie'' to an $83 million-grossing cultural phenomenon. In the process, Ledger changed not only the industry's sense of his abilities but his own sense of himself. ''After Brokeback I feel like I can take on anything,'' he said. ''What could be more challenging or scary? Nothing scares me now.''

Emboldened by Brokeback, last year Ledger took on the further challenges of playing a heroin-addicted poet in the indie Candy and the hallowed icon Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. With his role as the psychopathic, murderous Joker in The Dark Knight, however, he faced down the thing he'd seemed intent on avoiding in his earlier years: a starring role in a massive Hollywood franchise. Having tasted the bitter side of celebrity — the incessant prying into his offscreen relationships with actresses Heather Graham, Naomi Watts, and Williams — Ledger must have found the prospect of playing a leading role in such a high-profile enterprise daunting.

For Warner Bros., which plans to release The Dark Knight this summer, Ledger's death will create awkward marketing challenges. The studio has not yet announced any intention to alter its plans for the film, which is in postproduction, and issued a statement that it was ''stunned and devastated by this tragic news.'' Nor is it clear what will become of Gilliam's Imaginarium, which had wrapped one stage of filming in England but was set to resume shortly in Vancouver. What seems certain, however, is that, for most moviegoers, The Dark Knight will stand as the final complete performance of Ledger's career. And, sadly — or, perhaps, fittingly, for an actor who seemed so intent on remaining elusive despite his growing fame — his face will be obscured by makeup as thick as a mask.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Jensen, Gregory Kirschling, Jeff Labrecque, Whitney Pastorek, Lynette Rice, Lindsay Soll, Christine Spines, Benjamin Svetkey, Adam B. Vary, and Kate Ward)

See more from EW on the life and career of Heath Ledger::
Heath Ledger: An EW Critic's Tribute
Heath Ledger: His Career in Pictures
Heath Ledger: Christopher Plummer Reflects on His Late Costar
Heath Ledger: A PopWatch Tribute and Reader Comments