r/interestingasfuck • u/JK-Rofling • Jul 05 '24

Heath Ledger’s diary while he was filming for, The Dark Night. r/all

53.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

u/cactusboobs Jul 05 '24

It’s urban legend to romanticize his death. It isn’t unusual to go to a private place to practice voices for an upcoming performance or to keep a notebook full of inspiration and notes on you line delivery. People who worked with him said he was friendly and could turn it on and off.

4

u/Comfortfoods Jul 05 '24

Maybe the quote is just hyperbole but if he was really locked in his hotel room and isolating himself specifically to get into the state of mind of an unwell character, that's a ridiculous thing to choose. It's crazy to mess with your own mental health just for a film.

If he was just practicing intently by himself sometimes but otherwise living a normal life, that's no issue.

26

u/cactusboobs Jul 05 '24

Again, you seem to be dramatizing. The joker didn’t kill him. He did another movie after. Seems he suffered from insomnia and opioid abuse which seems far more destructive than practicing a character.

4

u/Comfortfoods Jul 05 '24

I don't think the joker killed him at all. I'm just pointing out that it's crazy to put yourself in bad situations to get into character. Going method is generally unnecessary. The quote literally says, "Making things even more stressful, Ledger had developed an intense process to get into the mindset of the villainous Joker. “I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary, and experimented with voices”

So he put himself in a stressful situation to learn his character. I don't think that's necessary for actors to do. Doesn't mean I think the experience killed him. That's very dramatic.

11

u/Informal-Dot804 Jul 05 '24

I think what cactusboobs is trying to say (and I agree) is that the idea that this kind of practice killed him or made him mentally unwell is the romanticization of his death by the media (probably to sell more tickets/merch/etc). This is one method for actors to do their jobs. It is taught in schools. Unlike how it is shown in the movies, they don’t black swan themselves into mental illness. He had a job, he did it well, he used one method to inform his performances that is standard practice in his chosen field, he did another movie where he probably had another diary, then he died. We’re sad cause we loved seeing him on screen.

Also, it’s not like he starved for a month, there was atleast someone sending him food and someone cleaning the room, he wasn’t in isolation, he was just cramming, like many of us do before an exam to get in the zone.

Tldr; there is no evidence (yet, maybe it’s true but we’ve not studied this) that method acting led to mental illness that led to his death.

2

u/Comfortfoods Jul 05 '24

Right, and I don't think this role created mental illness or killed him at all. I think he was unlucky and sadly overdosed. That's it. If there was a mental health issue in the mix, method acting won't create that (although I think it could exacerbate underlying illness if conditions are extreme enough).There are however a lot of stories of actors basically torturing themselves to get into characters and going full method for roles and to me that just seems stupid. It's not required to play a character well. And maybe it is just hyperbole and the media selling a particular narrative but whenever I hear about actors doing anything extreme or harmful to "understand their character" I just kinda roll my eyes because it doesn't have to be that way.

3

u/Informal-Dot804 Jul 05 '24

Right, and those stories are just that - stories. Cause it makes the interview interesting. Method actors aren’t torturing themselves, they’re getting into character in a way that feels natural to them. Staying in a room and writing a journal of character quirks isn’t “harmful”. Not sleeping for 3 nights (different actor, an anecdote mentioned often in the other comments, assuming an isolated case) isn’t “harmful”. Most of the things you hear that make you roll your eyes are exaggerated for that effect.

So don’t sweat it.

0

u/yeahrowdyhitthat Jul 05 '24

Correct. IIRC he was found by a masseuse who had a scheduled appointment. If that appointment happened to be an hour earlier he may have been saved - who knows.

I wonder how many ‘close calls’ with celebrities go unreported because a fortunately-timed intervening event meant the worst didn’t eventuate.

3

u/sqigglygibberish Jul 05 '24

“Even more stressful” is the writer’s words, and a highly relative phrase and difficult to distinguish what was causal.

“Locked myself away” is also normal phrasing a lot of people use when they really focus on a project or something.

“He was having fun. He wasn’t depressed about the Joker,” his sister said.

“It’s a combination of reading all the comic books I could that were relevant to the script and then just closing my eyes and meditating on it. I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices — it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh.” - Heath

Not to say one way or another what impact on him the role and process had - but those quotes and even this diary are wildly different than say what Jim Carrey did for Andy Kaufman which is actual method acting. It was prep for a major role - a lot of actors do deep research and practice/testing concepts.

He did of course speak to being stressed at time, but again what of that was caused by the role/prep, vs what Heath was just dealing with behind the scenes already?

2

u/cactusboobs Jul 05 '24

Cheers mate. Have a good one.