1. Heath Ledger's work consisted of 20 films in a variety of genres, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Monster's Ball, Casanova, Lords of Dogtown, Brokeback Mountain, Candy, I'm Not There, The Dark Knight, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the latter two of which were posthumously released.
Heath Ledger produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
Heath Ledger's parents separated when he was ten and divorced when he was eleven.
From 1993 to 1997, Heath Ledger had parts in the Perth television series Ship to Shore ; Heath Ledger had parts in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama Roar ; in Home and Away, one of Australia's most successful television shows; and in the Australian film Blackrock, his feature film debut.
Heath Ledger received "Best Actor of 2005" awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for his performance in Brokeback Mountain, in which he plays Wyoming ranch hand Ennis Del Mar, who has a love affair with aspiring rodeo rider Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.
Shortly after the release of Candy, Heath Ledger was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
At the time of his death on 22 January 2008, Heath Ledger had completed about half of the work for his final film role as Tony in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
In 2006, Heath Ledger directed music videos for the title track on Australian hip hop artist N'fa's CD debut solo album Cause An Effect and for the single "Seduction Is Evil ".
Later that year, Heath Ledger inaugurated a new record label, The Masses Music, with singer Ben Harper and directed a music video for Harper's song "Morning Yearning".
At a news conference at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, Heath Ledger spoke of his desire to make a documentary film about the British singer-songwriter Nick Drake, who died in 1974, at the age of 26, from an overdose of an antidepressant.
Heath Ledger was working with Scottish screenwriter and producer Allan Scott on an adaptation of the 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis, which would have been his first feature film as a director.
Heath Ledger intended to act in the film, with Canadian actor Elliot Page proposed in the lead role.
Heath Ledger was an avid chess player, and had participated in tournaments when he was young.
Heath Ledger was a fan of West Coast Eagles, an Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League and is based in his hometown of Perth.
Heath Ledger was an "obsessive" photographer who loved taking stills, then drawing over them with paint, markers or nail polish.
In January 2006, Heath Ledger listed his residence in Bronte, Sydney, for sale and returned to the US, where he shared a house with Williams in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn from 2005 to 2007.
Heath Ledger was "widely reported to have struggled with substance abuse".
Heath Ledger's publicist asserted that reports of Heath Ledger's alleged drug use had been inaccurate.
The report concluded that Heath Ledger died "as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine".
In 2017, Jason Payne-James, a forensic pathologist, asserted that Heath Ledger might have survived if hydrocodone and oxycodone had been left out of the combination of drugs that the actor took just prior to his death.
Heath Ledger furthermore stated that the mixture of drugs, combined with a possible chest infection, caused Ledger to stop breathing.
Heath Ledger added, "They will be taken care of and that's how Heath would want it to be".
Some of Heath Ledger's relatives may be challenging the legal status of his will signed in 2003, prior to his involvement with Williams and the birth of their daughter and not updated to include them, which divides half of his estate between his parents and half among his siblings; they claim that there is a second, unsigned will, which leaves most of that estate to Matilda Rose.
Heath Ledger felt that Ledger had a rare maturity beyond his years.
Heath Ledger's death affected the marketing campaign for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and both the production and marketing of Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, with both directors intending to celebrate and pay tribute to his work in these films.
In February 2008, as a "memorial tribute to the man many have called one of the best actors of his generation," Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell signed on to take over Heath Ledger's role, becoming multiple incarnations of his character, Tony, transformed in this "magical re-telling of the Faust story".
Heath Ledger's feet were on the ground and he was the least neurotic person I've ever met.
Heath Ledger received numerous awards for his Joker role in The Dark Knight.
Heath Ledger went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the second person to win a posthumous Academy Award for acting, as well as the first comic-book movie actor to win an Oscar for their acting.
Heath Ledger's family attended the ceremony on 22 February 2009, with his parents and sister accepting the award onstage on his behalf.
On 4 April 2017, a trailer was released for the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, which was released on 3 May 2017.