Heath Ledger

I feel terrible about the passing of Heath Ledger.

When I was working on “Where the Wild Things Are”, his girlfriend and baby momma, Michelle Williams was cast on the film (she has since been recast). I had to pick Michelle up at the airport and drive her around for two hours. She was one of the coolest stars I have met out here so far, totally down to Earth, and easy to talk to. She had her beautiful daughter Matilda with her, it seemed like life was great for her.

During the voice recording sessions, Heath flew into LA to be with his family. He was always very chill, monotone but extremely nice, polite and courteous- even when I inadvertently got him a parking ticket.

I had to drop off something at the set and return to the studio very quickly. I pulled into the set parking lot and got out of my car. When I got back, Heath’s rental SUV was parked behind me. “Fuck, I’ve got to get this guy who just got nominated for an Academy Award to move his car.”

He was totally cool with it, ran out there with me and moved his car to the street. He of course parked in a spot where they were about to do street cleaning. I tried to tell him that he shouldn’t park there, but he just did and went back inside to play with his baby.

Of course, the studio called and said I needed to stay on set until this other paperwork was finished. I had to sit there and watch the parking lady come out and give Heath a parking ticket. I wasn’t sure what to do. I ran inside and tried to get him to come out to move again but he was on the live set, and I wasn’t about to stop production for this thing.

Once word got to Heath that his car was getting a ticket, I was hiding. I wasn’t sure if he was going to be the same nice guy. I walked around outside, trying to avoid any contact with him or Michelle.

Heath calmly walked out, grabbed the ticket and didn’t care. I’m sure he had more than enough money to pay for the ticket, but he had such a cool manner about it when I saw him later, he didn’t even mention it or look at me cross. He just said ‘hello’ in his low gruff voice and went about his business.

I always thought back to that as a sign of what a cool guy he is. Was. Damn.

Warner Bros. was a buzz with talk about the death yesterday. He just finished Dark Knight for us and we are promoting Heath and his Joker character all over the internet and movie theatres. Now, what do you do right? Do you keep going with your dark ad campaign showing Heath in a pasty ghost white makeup talking about ‘Why so serious?”

It’s scary to me that he’s one year younger than me and now he’s gone. It certainly makes you think, at any time, you could get struck down.

It’s a sad day. My regards to Heath’s family, especially Michelle and Matilda.