And now that Heath Ledger’s dead he’s the actor of his generation, right? [ed. Ooof, too soon]. Kidding, apples and oranges there.
But yes, it’s true. He lost a whopping 63 lbs to play the skeletal insomniac of “The Machinist,” bulked right back and ontop of that for “Batman Begins,” (over 200lbs) dropped another 40 odd pounds for Werner Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn,” and then took on amazing performances in “The Prestige,” “The New World,” “I’m Not There,” and “3:10 To Yuma,” all within the span of three years.
This doesn’t include his amazing turn as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho,” and strong performances in “Empire Of The Sun,” “Velvet Goldmine” and “Laurel Canyon.” Even when his luck is shit – the poor film choices period in between ‘Psycho’ in 2000 and the ‘Machinist’ in 2004, he’s always doing solid work, even if it’s in movies that aren’t that great.
How is this right in any way? You can be sure the Academy is not going to right this wrong this year (and they didn’t), but one supposes it never hurts to remind. Maybe his turn as in the new Terminator as John Connor will finally tip the scales in his favor? What the hell will it take? This is akin to Johnny Depp having to wait until 10 years past his finest work to get nominated in something like “Finding Neverland.” Wait, that happened. Nevermind…
Generally we can’t take much blog-whining about what shoulda, coulda, woulda been. So, consider this the angry-worded memo to the Academy to get their shit in gear [ed. wow, you fucking showed them].
