BIOGRAPHY

From a time when all he had was 69 cents to his name and enough supplies to last him a trip across his home country to quickly becoming one of Hollywood's fastest rising stars, Heath Ledger has a lot to be thankful for. One could successfully argue that a combination of innate intelligence, unmatchable talent, and extreme stubbornness has brought Heath where he is today. He has gained the respect and admiration of "Patriot" co-star and mentor Mel Gibson who states, "Heath possesses an unlikely combination: he has incredible presence, yet he has no f*cking pretensions."

Heath first got his start in the Globe Shakespeare Company in Perth, Australia. Catching the acting bug from his older sister Kate, Heath went on to star in the title role of "Peter Pan." He was smitten. "I just loved it," he says, "and kept doing it. I blinked my eyes and I was getting paid. Doors kept opening and I kept walking through them."

During his time at Guildford Grammar school, Heath maintained his interest in both drama and sports, obtaining numerous hockey awards as well as receiving honors in drama and being appointed the captain of the drama team in 1996. Heath also coordinated a team to take part in a nationwide high-school dance competition known as Rock Eisteddfod. "We were the first all-guys school to ever do it," states Heath. "I choreographed the whole thing. These kids had never danced and didn't think they could do it. By the end, when they won the competition, they were so blown away by it."

Heath's parents divorced when he was at age 10, yet he maintains that he was not devastated by the event. "The point I got to very quickly, after my parents' divorce, was to realize that they were just humans," he says. Heath still remains close with his father, saying that "our relationship went from being in each other's face to being best friends. I guess that comes from understanding him as an adult now that I'm an adult." His immediate family has extended with half sisters Olivia and Ashleigh, whom he wishes he could spend more quality time with. "I feel like I'm a stranger to them," Heath admits. "That's why I try to get back as much as possible."

Finishing high school a year early at 16, he urged his friend Trevor DiCarlo (his best friend since he was 3 years old) to drive 2600 miles to Sydney in search of fame and fortune. "It was really about exploring life," says Heath. "I just wanted to get on that train that was flying past at 90 miles an hour. And my job was an excuse to get out and just do that."

Heath's movie debut was in a 1997 Australian teen drama "Blackrock" which led him to a breakthrough part as the first Australian television gay role on "Sweat," a show about young Olympic hopefuls. "He had the choice of two roles," recalls his father. "One was the swimmer and the other was the gay bicyclist. I was thinking to myself, Yeah, he'll choose the swimmer! I used to be a swimmer when I was younger. This'll be great! But then he told me he chose the gay role. I went, 'Oh, God . . . well, O.K.' But his response to that was 'Look, Dad, this is more of an acting role. So if I want to get some sort of recognition, that's the one I should be doing.' He wasn't fazed by any of the other stuff."

Soon he was starring in Fox's medieval drama "Roar," where Heath played a Celtic warrior prince. "Ironically, it was a 'Braveheart' rip-off," he says. "It was shot beautifully, and the script was half decent." Co-starring as Heath's young wife was neophyte Keri Russell whom writers mistakenly killed off in the early episodes. "They shouldn't have let her die," Heath notes. "We worked together really well. And after they killed her, they were going through all the possibilities of how they could get her back. Couldn't come up with anything." Although the show was cancelled, it won the loincloth-clad Ledger legions of female fans and eventually an agent in the States.

While auditioning for roles in the States, Heath was hired for Gregor Jordan's "Two Hands," a black comedy which, ironically, brought him back to Australia. "You've apparently got to leave the country to get work," he laughs. "It cleaned up in Australia and it won all the awards." Unfortunately, the film didn't fare so well when played for audiences at Sundance. "I don't think I've met one American who fully understands exactly what's going on in that movie," jokes Heath. After "Two Hands," Heath had two days to get to Seattle from Sydney to begin shooting "Ten Things I Hate About You," with Julia Stiles. "I had no rehearsals, nothing. I just basically turned up and went, Uh, what am I doing?"

After "Ten Things," Heath refused succumb to the big-money lure of the youth-movie genre and waited over a year before accepting any work. "There's little depth in those scripts," he says about the numerous teen based movie scripts he was sent. "You can only take the psyche of a teenager to a certain level. "I was literally living off Ramen noodles and water just because I was sticking to my guns. It was very hard because they offer you so much money," says Heath. "I guess I had thrown myself into a higher league of actors on a list that I probably shouldn't have been on at that point, but saying no turned out to be a lot more valuable than saying yes."

After holding out for a year, Heath beat out nearly 200 actors for his role "The Patriot," in which he stars as a zealous Revolutionary War rebel at odds with his battle-weary father, played Mel Gibson. Heath revealed that after auditioning, he had to await a while, saying, "It was terrible. It was awful. For every day for three weeks they said: 'Tomorrow you're going to know, I promise you.'" He had also heard that Ryan Phillippe had been up for the role, saying, "Ryan did a really amazing screen test as well. The executives and everyone said: 'Fine, we'll leave it up to the director. If you pick this guy the movie's going to go this way and if you pick that guy the movie's going to go that way two different movies.'"

In 2001, Heath rocked his fans' worlds in "A Knight's Tale", a medieval romp co-starring Shannyn Sossamon in her debut film, as well as Paul Bettany, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk, James Purefoy, and Rufus Sewell - a true ensemble cast. Heath however was the one featured on the poster for the film, with the tagline of "He Will Rock You" - something his mates loved to make fun of! "I certainly never felt that my head should be on the poster like it was," Heath explains, "because it was really an ensemble film." Heath had a riotous time filming "A Knight's Tale" in Prague, where he and his castmates were encouraged to drink beer and have fun as a group. "I hope some people are drunk when they see the film as we were enormously drunk when we made it," co-star Paul Bettany admits.

Heath then moved from Prague to Morocco to film "The Four Feathers", a re-telling of the famous novel and film. "I knew this character and I knew I could play him," says Ledger about Harry Faversham. "On the page he reads like a coward, but the more I thought about it the more I realized his decision not to go was heroic." Heath proved himself heroic when he took the risk of performing his own stunts in the film - he leapt onto a horse at full gallop. "They had five cameras rolling to catch that one," he says proudly.

On the set of "Feathers", Heath befriended co-star Wes Bentley, who soon asked of him a favour - to take his place for the role of Sonny Grotowski in "Monster's Ball" which was to star Wes alongside Billy Bob Thornton. This role brought Heath to the attention of critics world-wide when the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, one of which was won by actress Halle Berry.

Heath returned to Australia to team up once again with director Gregor Jordan to portray Ned Kelly, Australia's most infamous - and celebrated - outlaw. "I'd read a lot about Ned as a kid," Heath says. "I was excited at the thought of giving life to the legend."

In 2002, Heath, Shannyn Sossamon, and Mark Addy teamed up again with "A Knight's Tale" director Brian Helgeland to film "The Sin Eater" (AKA "The Order"), a supernatural thriller about a lesser-known side of Christianity.

The following summer back in Prague, filming began on "The Brothers Grimm", a fantastical story directed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam and co-starring Matt Damon. "I've always thought he had a brilliant mind and grew up on his movies," Heath said admiringly of Terry. The film gave Heath the opportunity to let his comic side soar as the goofiness that is Monty Python was brought back to life by Heath and Matt. "We have a similar perspective," Matt says of him and Heath. "We're total hams."

After "Grimm", for the first time in his entire career, Heath filmed at home. "Lords of Dogtown", a biopic about the (in)famous Z-Boys, was filmed in Los Angeles and Venice Beach, California, allowing Heath to sleep in his own bed at the end of the day. Playing a surfer and skater was not a stretch for Heath, as he has been doing so since he was a kid. Heath portrayed a real, still-living person named Skip Engblom, who sought after Heath for the role. "I saw this kid in The Patriot," Skip recalls, "and when people started asking me who I thought should play me, I said it should be Heath Ledger. Heath and I met and it was very strange how similar we are. I liked him right away. We'd go to Lakers games and hang out a lot. Heath wanted to get to know me and my mannerisms." Heath loved wearing all the vintage '70s clothing - it was an era he has said he would have felt at home in.

Immediately after filming "Dogtown", Heath moved on up to Canada to film "Brokeback Mountain", the screen adaptation to the short story by E. Annie Proulx. The decision was not an easy one for Heath to make. "I had fear going into it, but that was all the more reason to do it," Heath says. "I like to set up obstacles and defeat them." For the second time, Heath's performance began generating Oscar-buzz, this time for a leading role. The film caught critics' attention at international film festivals in 2005. On set, it was co-star Michelle Williams that caught Heath's attention. The two started dating while filming, and have been together since. They welcomed their baby girl, Matilda Rose, into the world on the 28th of October, 2005. "The real joke is that Heath and I made love and a baby was made," jokes co-star Jake Gyllenhaal.

Later that summer in 2004, Heath crossed the pond over to Venice, Italy to begin filming Lasse Hallström's vision of "Casanova". "Working in Venice was like four-month guided tour of the city," Heath says. "It was like shooting a film inside a museum." Says Lasse of the film: "It's dramatic. It's romantic. It's a comedy. But mostly it's a romp." Fans have likened this film to "The Patriot" and "A Knight's Tale", harkening back to the early days of Heath the Heart-throb.

The only project Heath worked on in 2005 was his first Australian film since "Ned Kelly". Titled "Candy" and based on the novel by Luke Davies, the film will be a gritty change to Heath's résumé. Heath went as far as to research his role as a heroine addict by visiting a Sydney addict.

For now, Heath and his partner, actress Michelle Williams, along with their daughter Matilda will split their time between Brooklyn, Sydney, and Los Angeles.

~source:Heathbaby.com