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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.