Its difficult a plain creature to comprehend how someone character can live only comfortable in his own skin when he is pretending to be someone else. There are very, very few actors who reach this emotional state. They are special beings who, like Heath Ledger, took only a few years to win the awe of his peers in the homeland of cinema, Hollywood.
With no more than 28, I remember seeing Heath Ledger in Home and Away, one of Australia's leading soap operas. He was much younger than me, so it was not one of those teenage puppy-love conditions, but I recognized his face immediately when he showed up as a guest on Parkinson, one of the UK's foremost chat shows. The interview highlighted Heath's arrival in Hollywood. After his stop in London, he was catching a flight into Los Angeles. He had just been called up to star in a film in Hollywood. Unfamiliar with that young man’s story, I remember thinking, "right on, mate! You're moving places!". I remember feeling delighted for him, maybe even exceedingly as I viewed the reticent young man sail gradually through the interview mumbling only a few, quiet statements, as if it were aching. I felt for him and it was rather difficult to sense his agony under those stage lights. I didn't have to know him to see he was not comfortable. The twitches. The hand covering the mouth as he spoke. The endless doodling with his imaginary fringe.
People are comparing him with the likes of Marlon Brando. I don't remember him much. I do recall seeing a few Brando interviews, and the sense of dislike in being interviewed was crystal clear. I did not however denote any shyness in Mr Brando. I guess its easiest to just bag all the ones who are not easily understood in one single bunch. Brando was not forthcoming. Health Ledger was not forthcoming. Maybe de Niro, or Pacino are not that forthcoming in interviews either. Do they have to be? That's a whole new question that deserves its own page. But the fact is, fans demand it that actors tell them all about their lives - what they buy, where the shop, who they sleep with.
Blogs and sites ooze with delicious gossip. Gossip is needed to fill the gaps because so many actors are not forthcoming. Forums abound with fantasies from adoring fans who protect their chosen actor as if he belonged to her. It makes strange reading. It is awkward, at times downright frightening, to read how far the fantasies of some of these fans go. So, maybe it is not that difficult to understand how the one under the spotlight might feel threatened by the intrusion.
Heath Ledger seemed different. He just wanted to act. He didn't want everything else - the fans, the screaming, the adulation, the flashes, the fake friends...he just wanted to act. Its probably not that he simply enjoyed acting other people's lives. There may have been a touch of adventure in the prospect of living someone else's life temporarily. But maybe he was tormented by his own shyness, and had difficulty letting others accept him as he was. Its called self-esteem.
I tend to judged the top performers in the world are the biggest frauds given their talentthe ease with which they to make the spectators believe they are who and what they play on film. I supose I was wrong. Heath Ledger was a wonderful young actor who seemed he was entirely legitimate on film. He plainly showed he hated to be there on central stage, under the bright glare of the paparazzi. Because all he wanted was to act. Not to be the main attraction.
