Andrew Garfield had a lot to say about late actor Heath Ledger during his appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Garfield and Heath Ledger starred together in the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, an adventure fantasy that was the last film Ledger worked on.
Compared to Legder at the time, Garfield was only just starting his career whereas Legder had already starred in the acclaimed films 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knight’s Tale, and Brokeback Mountain.
When Garfield asked him about his most recent film Legder had been filming, The Dark Knight, the actor already knew it was going to be a hit.
“He had just done the Joker, he had just finished doing The Dark Knight, and he was so smug about it. I was like, ‘How did that go?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s really good.’”
Garfield continued to share how the conversations the pair shared, recalling Ledger’s reaction to being on Empire’s magazine cover.
“I remember his like, Empire magazine cover came out and he was like, ‘Oh, they used a f—ing s— photo,’ And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me, dude that looks f—ing incredible.’ And he was like, ‘Nah, the pose is all wrong, it looks kinda like a conventional version of what an actor… you’ll see.’”
“And yeah, I did see.”
Yet, sadly, Ledger never got to see the true success of the Christopher Nolan-helmed film as on January 22nd, 2008, he passed away due to an accidental drug overdose.
The Dark Knight hit theatres in July of the same year, breaking several box office records and becoming 2008’s highest-grossing film.
Still viewed by many as one of the best superhero films, Ledger posthumously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Garfield reflected on how wonderful Ledger was to work with, even if their time together was brief.
“He was so free and so wild and so, kind of dangerous on set in a way that was the kind of thing that is inspiring and spontaneous,” he said
“He would say before every take, or one take every scene, ‘Let’s have some fun with this one.’”
“I remember the first day I met him he was wearing these amazing camo Ray Ban sunglasses and I just said, ‘Oh hey, cool sunglasses.’ And the next day they were like in my dressing room, he had just left them for me. He was just a very generous, beautiful, creative spirit,” he added.
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