Filling Heath Ledger’s Shoes
Posted December 21, 2009 3:32 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Heath Ledger passed away in January of 2008 while filming Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Instead of shutting down the film (a bizarre adventure that features many trips to an imaginary world and also stars Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits) Gilliam worked around the parts that were shot and called upon actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell to fill in the missing scenes with Ledger’s character Tony. The end result is seamless and makes the film one of the most unique experiences to watch.
Up until now Depp, Law, and Farrell have been quiet about their involvement in the production. They recently broke their silence in order to help boost the Christmas Day release and remember Ledger’s last performance.
“Though the circumstances of my involvement are extremely heart-rending and unbelievably sad, I feel privileged to have been asked aboard to stand in on behalf of dear Heath,” Depp says. “It was an honour to represent [him]. He was the only player out there breathing heavy down the back of every established actors neck with a thundering and ungovernable talent that came up on you quick, hissing rather mischievously with that cheeky grin,” he adds.
Law was a fan of Gilliam’s as well as a friend of Ledger’s and was emotionally torn when he was asked to be a part of the film.
“When I got the call, it was a double tug. I liked Heath very much as a man and admired him as an actor. To help finish his final piece of work was a tribute I felt compelled to make. To help Terry finish his film was an honour paid to a man I adore,” he says.
Seeing the production as one of his most memorable, Farrell says he’ll always look back on Dr. Parnassus as an incomparable experience in his body of work.
“Three of us had been asked to complete a task that had been set in motion by a man we greatly liked and respected as both a person and an artist. Being part of this film was never about filling Heath’s shoes as much as seeing them across the finish line. How I wish he had brought the film to its completion himself. Of course the whole crew felt this way. And the cast that we joined felt it too. It was this spirit of grieving the loss of Heath, that Johnny and Jude and I joined. But there was also a sense of dogged insistence. Insistence that Heath’s last piece of work should not be kept in the shadow of the light of day.”
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opens Christmas Day.
brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com
Top image: Johnny Depp in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassu. Courtesy E1 Entertainment.
