Thread: Dark Knight Director Remembers Heath Ledger

Dark Knight Director Remembers Heath Ledger : YourMovieStuff.com

Director of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, has written a very touching tribute to Heath Ledger.

Originally Posted by Little Wing

One night, as I'm standing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, trying to line up a shot for 'The Dark Knight,� a production assistant skateboards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full character makeup. I'd fretted about the reaction of Batman fans to a skateboarding Joker, but the actual result was a proliferation of skateboards among the younger crew members. If you'd asked those kids why they had chosen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered honestly that they didn't know. That's real charisma as invisible and natural as gravity. That's what Heath had.

Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.

One time he and another actor were shooting a complex scene. We had two days to shoot it, and at the end of the first day, they'd really found something and Heath was worried that he might not have it if we stopped. He wanted to carry on and finish. It's tough to ask the crew to work late when we all know there's plenty of time to finish the next day. But everyone seemed to understand that Heath had something special and that we had to capture it before it disappeared. Months later, I learned that as Heath left the set that night, he quietly thanked each crew member for working late. Quietly. Not trying to make a point, just grateful for the chance to create that they'd given him.

Those nights on the streets of Chicago were filled with stunts. These can be boring times for an actor, but Heath was fascinated, eagerly accepting our invitation to ride in the camera car as we chased vehicles through movie traffic not just for the thrill ride, but to be a part of it. Of everything. He'd brought his laptop along in the car, and we had a high-speed screening of two of his works-in-progress: short films he'd made that were exciting and haunting. Their exuberance made me feel jaded and leaden. I've never felt as old as I did watching Heath explore his talents. That night I made him an offer knowing he wouldn't take me up on it that he should feel free to come by the set when he had a night off so he could see what we were up to.

When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we'd have to show him the finished film sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we'd done with all that he'd given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.

Back on LaSalle Street, I turn to my assistant director and I tell him to clear the skateboarding kid out of my line of sight when I realize it's Heath, woolly hat pulled low over his eyes, here on his night off to take me up on my offer. I can't help but smile.

So many think acting is an easy job taken for granted by the actors, but whats really taken for granted is how hard it is to be put on the spot like that and expected to find your muse right then and there. As a writer I have to envy someone who can do their best art right on the spot. I have time to sit and wait for the muse to softly drift upon me like a slow fog laying over me like a blanket, the performing artist has to carry that blanket with them at all times and I could imagine how at times they could feel smothered by it....RIP Heath Ledger

i guess you never really know what a person's personal demons are but it has always seemed like he was a good person that was grateful for the chances he had, the job he got to do. i love movies and i don't take for granted the work that goes into them. christ, just posing for a single picture being myself sucks ass n i look like a dork most of the time.

i think his death was an accident brought on by the desperate need for sleep insomnia can cause... been there, and until you have had times in your life where sleep was absolutely impossible for 4 or 5 days on end you can't imagine. whatever his demons, we lost a good person not an ungrateful spoiled brat.

Crack head. Good ridance.

LESS than three months ago, Heath Ledger described his sleepless nights and mental exhaustion as he wrestled with his role as the "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic" Joker in the new Batman film.
One night he took a 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...


Ambien is marketed in Australia as Stilnox, and has been linked with dangerous side effects. More than 500 people responded to a national drug reactions hotline last year, reporting bizarre behaviour 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.

source


members here have told about some really weird shit they did on Ambien, i suppose they are crack heads too

I've taken Ambien four hours after my Ephedra. I was looking up at my ceiling fan and I swear it looked like a big hand!

Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

I've taken Ambien four hours after my Ephedra. I was looking up at my ceiling fan and I swear it looked like a big hand!

To quoth myself from another thread:"Better watch it with that Ambien, you might end up seeing yourself on the news as the Sleepwalk Flasher or Pervert who walks around town flashing women and jerking off at store front windows to mannequins mumbling about how sexy they look."

How come Heath looks so wrinkled in those pics?