The category Actor/Actress has been among other categories for like forever, probably since I created the blog and I just figured out that I haven’t done any decent posts to it. So I took it as a mission to do a long post about every person in the FPMW – Favorite People in the Movie World list so I get to post to my Director category as well!
So beginning this long list of posts dedicated to my favorite people is Heath Ledger, the Australian actor who’s death shocked the world and of course me as well. I haven’t watched 10 Things I Hate About You ever since and it has been 3 years! I miss the movie but I still find it hard to watch the curly haired Heath singing Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You – just thinking about it makes me sad – since 22nd January 2008 watching his movies makes me sad but I’ve still seen all of his movies (almost), most of them before his death. But I have just a little to say about some of them, my favorite ones that I have seen more than just once.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
A classic 90s teen movie that is probably a must to all teenagers plus I think it would be a lovely movie to young females in the need for some romantic comedy fix – if I get over it and become nostalgic about Heath I will watch 10 Things I Hate About You with my girlfriends, laugh and smile and remember Heath as my favorite heart-throb!
Julia Stiles plays a young and strong minded girl who isn’t excited about men nor dating them, but her little sister played by Larisa Oleynik wants to go to the prom – dad allows her only if the older sister is going. A plan is formed with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character and Heath Ledger comes into the picture.
It is a typical teen story but since it was done in a much simpler time the plot is simple and light and enjoyable. No tragic teen movie fail moments that tend to be in the latest teen movies a lot lately. Plus, it’s Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, they both even look a like and as you know, they don’t look bad but quite the opposite!
The Patriot (2000)
Monster’s Ball (2001)
A Knight’s Tale (2001)
Another love story with Heath Ledger as the lead which takes place in a time when knights were walking the earth – and Heath plays a peasant who decides to take part in a knight tournament. A girl is involved, funny friends included and I just remember that it was just a lovely and fun story. It doesn’t have the highest score in IMDb, a solid 6,6 but to all of Heath fans this is probably another fun one to watch.
Ned Kelly (2003)
The Order (The Sin Eater) (2003)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
This is some what the saddest Heath Ledger movie considering that the plot is also sad, I cried in the end and I can’t even imagine if the end was turned around and Jake Gyllenhaal would be the one crying. Plus, Michelle Williams is there, this is like a really bad home movie going on right there – with two guys loving each other of course.
But the movie itself is good, 7.8 score in IMDb is a proof of that and this qualifies Brokeback Mountain as the second best movie in the list of Heath Ledger’s highest scored movies in IMDb. The first one shouldn’t be a surprise – I’ll get to that soon.
Casanova (2005)
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Listing this high above the favorite Heath Ledger movies I have watched, considering that it includes my other favorite Matt Damon. The movie is filled with action and fantasy and a little bit of love thrown in there as well – the Grimm brothers are scamming people with fake ghosts but then they are hired to find the real mystery.
I kind of like this one with Heath because he is a totally different character there, a little bit of that Johnny Depp captain Sparrow thing going on – a new kind of funny for him. Plus it is Terry Gilliam, his two biggest projects, this one and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, are one of my favorite fantasy movies but I think heath ledger has something to do with this – interesting.
Candy (2006)
I’m Not There (2007)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Number one. Best ever. Epic movie. Heath Ledger gave a performance of his life, a performance that is said to be the hardest role ever, a role that took his life – the Joker is Heath Ledger after this and the rest of the movie kind of looses its meaning without him.
The scary thing while watching this movie was that I didn’t recognize him, he was a totally different person and watching the extra behind the scenes stuff I was so proud of him – can only imagine what amazing roles Heath ledger would have done after this one, the skill in this is memorable and more important than the Oscar he got for it after his death – he should have a statue or something.
Am I making this movie look better than it is? Probably not, this movie is better than I’m making this look – I have no better words to describe this movie – EPIC!
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
A movie that came out almost two years after his death – Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell stepped into the project to play 3 different Tony’s – the character that Heath Ledger was portraying. The way Terry Gilliam made the movie happen after the tragic event was remarkable, plus Andrew Garfield was in it and I can’t even remember – I must have not be paying attention to the rest of the movie – had only eyes on Heath probably. Should revisit this movie soon, there isn’t a lot of Heath there, not as much as I would like of course, but just enough to not make me happy about his career and just enough not to make me sad.
So this is it, this is the list of movies – the list ends here and the saddest thing is – this list will never become longer than this.
Short facts:
Date of Birth
4 April 1979, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Date of Death
22 January 2008, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA (accidental overdose of prescription drugs)
Birth Name
Heath Andrew Ledger
Nickname
Heathy
Mini bio (from Wikipedia)
Heath Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia, the son of Sally Ledger (née Ramshaw), a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, a racing-car driver and mining engineer, whose family established and owned the Ledger Engineering Foundry.[13] The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust is named after his great-grandfather.[13] Ledger attended Mary’s Mount Primary School, in Gooseberry Hill,[14] and later Guildford Grammar School, where he had his first acting experiences, starring in a school production as Peter Pan at age 10.[3][13] His parents separated when he was 10 and divorced when he was 11.[15] Ledger’s older sister Kate, an actress and later a publicist, to whom he was very close, inspired his acting on stage, and his love of Gene Kelly inspired his successful choreography, leading to Guildford Grammar’s 60-member team’s “first all-boy victory” at the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge.[13][16] Heath’s and Kate’s other siblings include two half-sisters, Ashleigh Bell (b. 1989), his mother’s daughter with her second husband and his stepfather Roger Bell, and Olivia Ledger (b. 1997), his father’s daughter with second wife and his stepmother Emma Brown.[17]
Ledger was an avid chess player, winning Western Australia’s junior chess championship at the age of 10.[18] As an adult, he often played with other chess enthusiasts at Washington Square Park.[19] Allan Scott‘s film adaptation of the chess-related 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit, by Walter Tevis, which at the time of his death he was planning to both perform in and direct, would have been Ledger’s first feature film as a director.[2][20]
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