Heath Ledger would have turned 37 years old this month, had he not passed in 2008 (the same year he received the best reviews in his career for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight), and his death still weighs heavy on Jake Gyllenhaal’s mind. The two were occasional co-stars — they were both nominated for Oscars for Brokeback Mountain, and because it would have been awkward if only one of them won, they both lost — and more importantly, friends. Gyllenhaal told People that Ledger dying “affected me in ways I can’t necessarily put in words or even would want to talk about publicly. In terms of professionally, I think I was at an age [27 years old] where mortality was not always clear to me.” He continued:
“I think you live in this bubble, too, of making films… There are real friends, and there is a real community,” he said of the experience. “There is also that [new Macklemore song] where he says, ‘The curtain closes and nobody notices’… I think that’s true, and I think that’s okay. But I think at the time, I assumed everyone would notice – and they did with Heath dying, but I think it [gave me] the experience of, ‘This is fleeting.’ And none of the attention or synthesized love that comes from the success of a film really matters at all. What matters is the relationships you make when you make a film, and the people you learn from when you’re preparing for a film. That changed a lot for me.” (Via)
Gyllenhaal’s next film, Demolition, about a man who loses his wife in a car accident and tries to put his life back together, comes out on Friday. There will be no “new Macklemore songs” on the soundtrack, probably.
(Via People)
