While promoting his upcoming romantic drama We Live Time, which also stars Florence Pugh, Andrew Garfield appeared on the Happy Sad & Confused podcast. Speaking to host Josh Horowitz, the actor recalled working with his The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus co-star, the late Heath Ledger.
The actor, who recently completed shooting for The Batman, had a certain impression about him on the set. Garfield recalled, “He had just made Joker, he had just finished shooting The Dark Knight, and he was very happy about it.” And he was like, ‘Yeah, this is really cool,'” he said.
When the two collaborated, the Tik Tik Boom actor was a newbie, while the late actor had earned praise for his works such as 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knight’s Tale and Brokeback Mountain. When Ledger was featured on the cover of Empire magazine, he talked to Garfield about what went wrong with his cover image.
He was like, ‘Oh, they used a f—ing s— photo,'” Garfield shared. “And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me, dude, this looks incredible.'” But he continued to disagree, saying it looked traditional. “You’ll see,” the Joker actor said. “And yes, I saw,” Garfield admitted.
Unfortunately, Ledger passed away a few months before the release of The Dark Knight. The actor was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on January 22, 2008, at the age of 28, and the cause was reported to be an accidental overdose.
When the DC film released six months after the actor’s tragic demise, the Christopher Nolan-directed film broke several box-office records and became the highest-grossing film of the year. Considered one of the best superhero films of all time, the film earned many accolades. Ledger was posthumously honored with several awards, including an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
“He was kind of a lighthouse, it was like a wild animal,” Garfield said. “He was so free on set and so wild and dangerous in a way that was inspiring and spontaneous,” she said. Before each take, Ledger would make announcements for everyone’s entertainment. “He was a very generous, beautiful, creative person,” Garfield said.
