He Was Ledger

I've never much cared for public outpouring of grief for someone that people don't know personally. This is probably due to the hypocritical media shitstorm that surrounded the Princess of Wales untimely death. But as a friend put it the news of Heath Ledger's death has 'weirdly bummed me out.'

Of course his age has a lot to do with it but young people die everyday. So I will leave it at simply being upset at the loss of a rare talent whose work seemed to be getting better and better. After 10 Things I Hate About You and A Knights Tale he could have chosen the heartthrob, big money roles. Yet with the trio of Lords of Dogtown, The Brothers Grimm and the film that really raised his standard Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger seemed to be an actor who genuinely cared about making interesting films.

His role in I'm Not There was as good if not better than any other and in an ensemble such as that you can't get much higher praise. The Dark Knight will be a little harder to watch now. His place in cinema history is now sealed. Hopefully he will be a role model for other actors to follow so when it comes to choosing parts they take a leaf out of Heaths book and look for the quality over the paycheck.