Heath Ledger's diary of his role as "The Joker" has finally been revealed.
The death of Heath Ledger shocked millions and left the world in mourning. His method acting as "The Joker" in The Dark Knight was respectively one of the best roles ever played as said by the Oscar on his resume. Although this is true, how did he get so in tune with his character? and how did preparing for this role physically and mentally exhaust him to the point of his accidental pill overdose in 2008?
According to The Hollywood Reporter during a German documentary series called Too Young to Die: Heath Ledger: Favorite of the Gods, there is a clip where Kim Ledger, Heath Ledger's father, flips through the pages of Heath Ledger's diary. Inside were Heath's deepest and darkest thoughts of what he went through preparing for his role as "The Joker," as well as several writings and drawings that were collected by the 28 year-old method actor.
Apparently there was a handwritten "good-bye" written across the very last page of diary.
It was revealed by The Guardian Express that in an interview with Empire Magazine in 2007 he was planning on writing the diary. He also told the magazine that he put himself in to solitary confinement which resulted in him writing all his thoughts down in this diary called "The Joker."
”Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. … I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” He also said “It’s kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn’t be doing it and I don’t know how to do it and I’m going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out."
In the documentary series, Too Young to Die, Heath's father, Kim, told a lot about the diary and explained just how much of a method actor Heath really was. During the scene where "The Joker" gives his monologue to Harvey Dent wearing a nursing outfit, Kim pointed out a version of the monologue that was in fact written by hand by Ledger.
"The hospital scene is interesting because when he was a kid, his sister Kate liked to dress him up as a nurse, He was really funny like that," said Kim.
It was known that he locked himself up for weeks in a hotel just to develop himself as "The Joker," as said by The Huffington Post.
Translated from German this is what was said in the documentary:
“This is the Joker’s diary. In order to inhabit his character, he [Heath] locked himself up in a hotel room for weeks. He would do that. He liked to dive into his characters, but this time he really took it up a notch. The hospital scene is interesting because when he was a kid, his sister Kate liked to dress him up as a nurse. He was really funny like that. He also was in the movie. This is a makeup test, which was done eight months before. Before the end of the shooting he wrote ‘bye-bye’ on the back of the page. It was hard to see this.”
Image Credit: Tumblr