Celebrity deaths have a way to pierce the pop culture landscape, as fans and loved ones alike mourn and honor their legacy. One major example of this is the death of late actor Heath Ledger, who passed away shortly after wrapping his role as Joker in The Dark Knight. The death happened back in 2008, but more information about that time is still trickling out. Ledger was working on a Blink adaptation at the point of his death, and it turns out his father called director Stephen Gaghan at his bedside. The filmmaker has shared this story, being quoted saying “I literally just collapse” from the news.
While Ledger would be honored with a posthumous Oscar for The Dark Knight (which is available to stream with a Max subscription) his career would have continued if he didn’t pass away so suddenly. At the point of his death he was working on an adaptation of Blink, directed by Stephen Gaghan. He appeared on the Development Hell podcast and shared how he found out about the actor’s death, saying:
I got a phone call, they were on speakerphone and it was Heath Ledger’s father, who I’d never met […] and a guy who was really close to him. They were there with the body, and our script was in bed with him, and your book was on the bedside table. I think my number was on the script — like written. These guys are in, as you can imagine, they are in shock. And they dialed that number, and I don’t know why.
Holy chilling is that? While Ledger’s death would have been upsetting no matter what, Gaghan definitely didn’t expect to be contacted immediately after his passed away. And hearing from Heath Ledger’s father was no doubt an extra shock.
As he explained in the podcast, Gaghan had gotten very close to Heath Ledger prior to his death. This is partly why he had such a strong emotional response to the actor’s sudden passing. Later in that same podcast, he revealed he was with his family in an airport when getting the call, and his hard it hit him. In the Syriana filmmaker’s words:
I literally just collapse. It’s never happened to me before or since. My feet went out from under me. I just literally sat down because I was like, ‘What? What?’ The emotion, what they were going through, I should not have been a party to in any way, really, and yet as a human and somebody who just cares, I just was there and I was listening. My wife was looking at me. I remember her face and I was just speechless. I just listened and listened and listened. It was just really, really sad. And it’s still sad.
Talk about sobering. This sentiment of disbelief and grief would eventually be shared by his loved ones and fans alike, who were collectively caught off guard when Ledger passed so suddenly. And over a decade later, it’s still a devastating celebrity death that folks are mourning, including Gaghan.
In the end, the Blink movie never ended up bing produced without Ledger. We’ll just have to see if it ever gets out of development hell. In the meantime, check out the 2024 movie release dates.
