Heath Ledger Is Still Finding Himself

Added: 11/22/2007

When you spend your whole life running from something it can eventually catch you and cause you problems that you could have avoided if you would have just faced the problem head on. Heath Ledger has been running from his own career for years and just when it seemed like he was happy he would start running again. Hopefully his role in the new Batman movie will allow him to stop running.

Heath Ledger is of Scottish and Irish descent but he was born in Perth, Australia on April 4, 1979. He was anxious in school and in the school he was attending which was an all boys school you either had to take a cooking class or a drama class in your senior year. Heath Ledger was not much of a cook so he decided to take up drama. He took to it right away and he felt that he had some talent in the field of drama but his classmates did not share his enthusiasm for Heath Ledger’s abilities. Heath Ledger dismissed their negative reaction as jealousy and when he graduated from high school, at the age of 17 and with only a few cents in his pocket, Heath Ledger packed up his car and moved to Sydney, Australia in search of his movie and acting career. But when he got to Sydney Heath Ledger found it tough going in the acting business and in 1996 he was offered a role as an Olympic hopeful gay cyclist in the short lived television show Sweat. But the quick demise of the show soon left Heath Ledger without a job again and small roles in low budget movies such as the 1997 flop Blackrock were not going to help pay the rent. Heath Ledger would have to find something that would sustain him as an actor.

Heath Ledger kicked around from small movie role to small movie role and was doing anything he could to get paid and stay alive as an actor. In 1999 he got his first really positive press with his performance in the movie Two Hands. Two Hands was an impressive movie to many and it landed Heath Ledger a role in the successful movie 10 Things I Hate About You. It looked like Heath Ledger was finally on his way as a successful actor in the movie business. But then something happened that caused Heath Ledger to lose sight of what it meant to be an actor and to forget that every acting paycheck is a blessing.

Heath Ledger was getting the feeling that his good looks were getting him work and not his acting and while many Hollywood actors accept something like this, Heath Ledger was becoming very uncomfortable with the idea. He took a large role in the Mel Gibson 2000 hit The Patriot and was praised for his performance. But it didn’t seem like enough for Heath Ledger and he started taking on strange and inconsistent roles that were causing him to show up in flop after flop. A Knight’s Tale in 2001 and then Ned Kelly and The Order both in 2003 were critical and box office disasters and it started to look like Heath Ledger was pushing himself right out of an acting career. But his willingness to take unconventional roles soon paid off and in a big way.

In 2005 Heath Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of a straight cowboy caught up in a homosexual love affair in Brokeback Mountain. He was praised not only for taking the role but for his outstanding performance. Now the world waits to see what Heath Ledger will do next and the biggest anticipation is around his upcoming portrayal of the The Joker in the new Batman movie The Black Knight. No one knows quite what to expect and that is the way Heath Ledger likes it and that is the way Heath Ledger has always wanted his career to be.

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