RIP Heath Ledger  

While noting events from Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general isn't exactly my style, I liked this tribute to Heath Ledger at The Orstrayhun - especially the segment below from an interview with Andrew Denton.

In his far too short career, Ledger turned out some magnificent performances in some good to excellent movies - BlackRock, Two Hands, The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Ned Kelly, The Brothers Grimm, Brokeback Mountain and I'm Not There. His completed work in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, will likely prove to be the most interesting and powerful work of his career, judging from the few minutes of footage I've seen of him playing The Joker as an utterly unhinged manic-depressive.

Ledger didn't have a great relationship with the media, and didn't do a whole lot of interviews. One of the best and most revealing was with, of course, Andrew Denton on Enough Rope.

When the interview was conducted, shortly before the Iraq War began, Ledger had been copping a disgusting amount of vitriol and and filth from the pro-war media, particularly the usual suspects in the Murdoch columnists' stable. Ledger led one of the biggest pro-peace marches in Melbourne. From the Denton interview :

Andrew Denton : ....You were in Melbourne the other day, leading the march. I saw you on TV last week, after a bit of thought referring to our Prime Minister (John Howard) as 'a dick'.

Heath Ledger: Yeah.

Andrew Denton: You stand by that?

Heath Ledger: Well…yes, I do stand by that, absolutely.

Andrew Denton: There are those…and they've written over the weekend to suggest that you've been duped, that you're grandstanding.

Heath Ledger: Well, you know what? It's like… Screw it, man, everyone has their right to their opinion and that's mine. And, look, I'm not alone, am I?

Audience: No.

Andrew Denton: And to those who'd say, "Get your hand off it, Ledger, what do you know?"

Heath Ledger: ....the unfortunate truth is none of us know enough and we will never know enough. But, screw it....This is the first time in the history of our country that we're an aggressor, and we're not an aggressive nation or people. I'm certainly not, and I'm very proud of my country and I'm the very proud of the people here. We shouldn't be a part of this. It's not a fight for humanity. It's a fight for oil....I think we should all pull out and live a peaceful existence down here.

Andrew Denton: Are there people around you saying, "Just pull back, Heath. Don't say this, don't blow it?"

Heath Ledger: Yeah, but at the end of the day, what am I going to blow? My career? At the end of the day, my career is so insignificant in this…this war. It just is, and I'm willing to lose a few jobs over it. God. Yeah. I'll start to cry soon....I don't know how much effect it will have on it, but hopefully we can stop this thing before it's too late. Unfortunately, you know, within the human kind of instinct, we don't… It's like, I could tell you, Andrew, "Don't touch the fire because if you touch it you'll burn yourself," and you'll go, "OK." But then when I'm looking that way, you'll go over and you'll touch it and burn yourself and then you'll learn. I just hope we don't take it that far. I hope we learn before something disastrous happens.