Despite his extraordinary turn as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” last year, an article in Vanity Fair this week on the late and great Heath Ledger alleges that the actor signed on to the project with the intention of eventually being laid off with financial compensation.
According the actor’s agent, Steven Alexander, Ledger signed a pay-or-play deal for “The Dark Knight” which meant compensation would be granted for the actor with or without a performance. As a result, Ledger reportedly had absolute freedom to explore the role and do whatever he wanted as the Joker — which may have been why he went the the direction he did.
“Friends” reportedly also noted that Ledger was attracted to the role of the Joker as the lengthy shoot would allow him to reject other offers while Nicola Pecorini, cinematographer on Ledger’s final role in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus,” further added that Ledger had gone as far as hoping that he would be fired and, subsequently, benefit from a lengthy, paid vacation.
Be that as it may, we’re not too sure what Vanity Fair, Pecorini and Alexander are trying to achieve by revealing such alleged information (and images such as this for that matter. We’re all for light heartedness but is it appropriate for a piece titled “Heath Remembered”? Not to mention all the marital drama in the piece the brings up dirt with Michelle Williams that we won’t bother to address here).
“[Heath] was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices,” added Alexander. “He was a private person, and he didn’t want to share his personal history with the press. It just wasn’t up for sale. That’s part of the reason he initially tore down his career. He wasn’t motivated by money or stardom, but by the respect of his peers, and for people to walk out of a movie theater after they’d seen something that he’d worked on and say, ‘Wow, he really disappeared into that character.’ He was striving to become an ‘illusionist,’ as he called it, able to create characters that weren’t there.”
Ledger’s final performance in “The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus” is still yet find to U.S. distribution though was recently bought by Lionsgate in the U.K. possibly boding well for a potential release by the company’s U.S. arm. Clips of the film will also appear at ComicCon 2009 in July which could also hopefully facilitate a sale.
