Heath Ledger was known for putting every bit of himself into a role. It’s hard to forget a performance like the one he gave as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, where he did just that. While giving the world so much of himself in all of his work, his life ended too soon, right before The Dark Knight was released.
And now the world can get to know the late actor more in the German documentary Heath Ledger: Too Young To Die, which celebrates the actor’s life and work, and reveals his preparation for some of his roles, including the Joker. Many stories from The Dark Knight set about Ledger’s performance and prep have been known since the movie came out, one of which being the fact that Ledger locked himself in a hotel room for about a month and kept a diary.
The clip below shows Ledger’s father flipping through the diary, stating that Ledger showed the same amount of devotion in completely inhabiting a character in every film that he most certainly did in order to play the Joker. It’s a very interesting look at how Ledger prepared for the role and the lengths he went to in order to play the Joker as truly as he could.
Watch the clip below.