We told you this amazing Heath Ledger EW piece had a lot of fascinating elements to it. If we can get corny for a second it’s honestly left a lump in our throat. Obviously we’re inclined to snark and cynicism, but there’s little to be jackass-ish about here. In fact, all one can do is mourn. We digress.
Terry Gilliam worked with Heath Ledger on two films, the commercially unsuccessful, “The Brothers Grimm” for Miramax (when the Weinsteins were still in power) and the upcoming “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,” and by all accounts in the aforementioned feature, the two became extremely close (which is probably why Ledger worked with him again, despite the box-office bomb the film became), with Ledger calling him during the making of “Brokeback Mountain” to complain about the atmosphere on the set (even ‘Brokeback’ people claim that Ang Lee is pretty icy with the actors onset), because the ‘Grimm’ crew were so warm, inviting and supportive.
Gilliam says when he first heard of Ledger’s death his immediate reaction was to just close down the film (which did happen initially) and the only reason he stuck to it was because everyone said he should do it for Heath. When he came up with the crazy idea to replace him with three other actors [eventually Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law], all of them were onboard instantly (all of them cut their fees to a bare minimum too).
“For me, it was like, Let’s just close up shop here, because without Heath I don’t want to continue on this project. He was so central and so important. And everyone just kept beating me up, saying, ‘No, you have to keep going for Heath. He wanted to see this film.” Then we made the quantum leap: What if we get three actors to replace him? Johnny was the first person I called. I said, ”Would you consider helping finish Heath’s part?” And he said, ‘Done, I’m there.’ Same with Jude and Colin. I had no confidence that it would work. It was just that I didn’t know what else to do, so let’s just gamble and do it. Because I was determined that Heath’s role was not just going to disappear.”
Gilliam says ‘Parnassus’, Ledger’s last onscreen role is being edited as we speak.
“We’re cutting Parnassus now, so it’s like I work with Heath every day. He’s in fine shape, at least in the world I’m inhabiting at the moment. It just doesn’t make sense. Every day goes by and I think, He’ll be back in a second.”
It’s interesting to note that Gilliam’s cinematographer Nicola Pecorini seems like he became very close with Ledger as well. More on that later.
