The Last Laugh

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

And so “The Dark Knight” will join “The Crow” as a comic book oriented film that’s going to have a seriously tragic and creepy aspect added to it: Watching a promising young actor performing his last role as a death obsessed comic book character.

It will be a while (if ever) before we find out exactly what happened to Heath Ledger (whom I’ve liked in every film I ever saw him in.) I sure hope they don’t rule it suicide: Losing a loved one at such a young age is tragic enough for the family; but suicide is a whole new level of trauma.

PAD

59 comments on “The Last Laugh”

  1. I don’t think taking Nicholson’s reaction…maybe the first he’d heard of Ledger’s passing…on his way through a crowd in front of cameras, pretty much ambushed that way, as any indication of his feelings or reaction. “I warned him” without context is pretty meaningless. The fact that Nicholson appears to be smiling is likewise irrelevant, because he’s in front of a bunch of cameras, and he’s an actor. If anyone’s going to school their emotions, it’s going to be an actor…Oscar winning, I might remind everyone…during a red carpet event, or similar photog event.

    And even it Nicholson did mean it in an “I told him so” way, tis a dámņšìghŧ better than I’ve seen from other sources.

  2. So much of what we say is open to (mis) interpretation. Perhaps Nicholson merely said something along the lines of ‘I warned him taking the Joker role would change his life in ways he could never imagine’. Pretty innoculous. Headlines following this could then say “I WARNED HIM–NICHOLSON”.

  3. On the opposite side of the spectrum, ew.com has an interview with Christopher Plummer posted today regarding Heath Ledger.

    Mr. Plummer had nothing but good to say. He mentioned that he thought Heath may have been ill, but was in apparent good spirits about the film they were creating. In fact, he said that Heath was looking forward to his first directing job.

    All-in-all a nice, classy read. None of this “I warned him” or suicide speculation.

  4. Yesterday, I finally watched the two-minute theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight, which apparently has been out for a while. That trailer shows what is easily the scariest Joker ever put on film.

  5. Today, they seem to be more accurately quoting Nicholson. I think I saw it on imdb. Jack mentioned a bad experience he had while using Ambien and “I warned him” referred to someone else. I don’t believe he’d met Ledger and the British press was mis-quoting him. Check on it, remember 90% of what you read online is bs.

  6. Pandaphilwrote:

    “Naturally Westboro Baptist has just announced they plan to picket his funeral over his work on Brokeback.
    The sheer level of hatred I feel for these people is just beyond words right now.”

    If it makes you feel any better some FARKer has bought up http://www.godhatesheathledger.com to keep Phelps from getting it and is planing on using it to trash him and the Westboro crazies.

    Trying to sift thru the reports to suss out what really happened it sure sounds like it was accidental to me. No matter the cause, like many have stated it sucks that there’s a two-year old girl out there that has to grow up without a dad now.

    -Chris
    (I hope my html-fu is strong with this post – the preview function has never worked for me)

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