Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger
Heathcliff Andrew Ledgerwas an Australian actor and director. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger left for the United States in 1998 to develop his film career. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Monster's Ball, Ned Kelly, The Brothers Grimm, Lords of Dogtown, Brokeback Mountain, Casanova, Candy, I'm Not There, The Dark Knightand The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. He also produced and directed music...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth4 April 1979
CityPerth, Australia
CountryAustralia
I have kind of been living out of bags for the past 13 years. I will just stick to that, ... Home is, like, Earth. I don't care where I land. I am actually thinking of going to live in Italy. The food and the wine are great there. That's it really.
You have to be willing to be manipulated in the first place because you can either recognize that in your director and then fight it because you don't trust them, but I'm not going to let them manipulate me. Or you think they're on to something and that they're manipulating something out of you which is interesting and new.
I think your personal evolution runs hand in hand with your professional evolution. Performance and the person you are kind of grow simultaneously.
The Australian sense of humor is very dry, sarcastic, and very undercover. Like if I tell any jokes in America, people just think I'm serious! So I just quit telling any jokes whatsoever.
I have never had great expectations of my performance or of a film. I try not to think about the outcome. If you look that far ahead, it sort of taints your choices as an actor. I try as hard as I can to believe that no one is ever going to see it and that it's not even a movie. Then you can allow yourself to bare more. Then, once a project is done, I tend to forget about it until it comes out.
Anyone that has a job that takes them away from home, I think, can understand the difficulties in maintaining consistency, not only with your family and those you love but with your friends.
I do think that drugs and alcohol have been glorified and exoticized in such a way that it gets into the art world.
It's kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn't be doing it and I don't know how to do it and I'm going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.
I generally don't think most situations can be labeled as black or white.
[The Joker is a] psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy. ... Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.
I think the most common cause of insomnia is simple; its loneliness.
I sort of took my career and destroyed it,
was a very lonely experience, but it was supposed to be.
I was really lucky that my character was uncomfortable with it and knew it too. So I could use my own level of discomfort, because it was new and strange for me, and that worked for me.