Playing The Joker didn’t lead to Heath Ledger’s death, family says

By Matt Gerardi | April 25, 2017 | 6:40pm

Aux Features Film

Playing The Joker didn’t lead to Heath Ledger’s death, family says

At the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, Kate Ledger, the sister of the late actor, tried to dispel the long-whispered speculation that her brother’s death had something to do with his role in The Dark Knight. Before his death in 2008, Ledger himself described suffering from insomnia and trying to treat it with prescription drugs during his legendary turn as the mass-murdering, psychopathic Batman villain The Joker, for which he won a posthumous Academy Award. But according to his sister, as reported by The Telegraph, all the depression and turmoil Heath was rumored to have been going during the film’s production, as well as the creepy Joker journal he’d constructed, was normal for the famously dedicated actor.

“I was really shocked, because that was him having fun,” The Telegraph reports her as saying. “Every report was coming out that he was depressed and that [the role] was taking this toll on him, and we’re going, honestly, it was the absolute opposite. It couldn’t be more wrong. He had an amazing sense of humor, and I guess maybe only his family and friends knew that, but he was having fun. He wasn’t depressed about the Joker!” The documentary’s producer, Matt Amato, also weighed in on the subject. “I hope it’s an antidote to a lot of the gossip that exists in the world,” he said, according to The Telegraph. “There are some really terrible things about Heath out there.”