Why so serious?

Heath Ledger had just wrapped up his role as The Joker in 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’ when he teamed up with Andrew Garfield in ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’ – and he knew the DC Comics film would be a success.

“He had just finished ‘Joker,’ he had just finished ‘The Dark Knight,’ and he was so smug about it,” Garfield, 41, recalled during a recent interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “I thought, ‘How did that go?’ and he said, ‘Yes, it’s really good.’

Ledger had already worked on blockbusters such as “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999), “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) and “Brokeback Mountain” (2005).

“I remember when his cover of Empire magazine came out and he said, ‘Oh, they used a picture of the king,'” Garfield told MTV’s Josh Horowitz. “And I thought, ‘Are you kidding me, dude, that looks fucking incredible.’ And he said, ‘No, the pose is all wrong, it looks a bit like a conventional version of what an actor… you’ll see.’ And yes, I saw it.”

The Christopher Nolan-directed drama also starred Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy.

“The Dark Knight” was set to debut in theaters in July 2008, six months after Ledger’s tragic death. The Australian native was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on January 22, 2008 at the age of 28. His death was ruled an accidental drug overdose and attributed to a deadly mix of prescription drugs.

Ledger earned multiple accolades posthumously, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His family accepted the Oscar for him and gave a moving and emotional speech at the ceremony.

“It was like a beacon, it looked like a wild animal,” Garfield told Horowitz. “He was so free and so wild and everything, quite dangerous on set, in a way that was inspiring and spontaneous. He said before every take, or before every scene, “Let’s have some fun with this.”

“I still have a lot of memories of him,” he continued. “I remember the first day I met him, he was wearing these amazing Ray-Ban camouflage sunglasses and I said, ‘Oh hey, cool sunglasses.’ And the next day they were like in my dressing room, he just left them for me. He was just a very generous, beautiful, creative spirit.”

Ledger had a daughter Matilda, now 18, with his “Brokeback Mountain” co-star Michelle Williams. The 44-year-old ‘Dawson’s Creek’ alum recently revealed that Matilda has gone off to college.

In 2022, Williams spoke about how friend and fellow actor Jeremy Strong stepped in to help her after Ledger’s death.

“Jeremy was serious enough to bear the weight of a child’s broken heart and sensitive enough to understand how to approach her through play, games and silliness,” she told Variety of the “Succession” alumnus.

“(Matilda) didn’t grow up with her father, but she grew up with her Jeremy and we were changed by his ability to play as if his life depended on it,” she added.

“We saw him work harder than anyone else and wait a long time for people to recognize it,” she noted of his success. “So when he was celebrated like that, we all celebrated.”