“It was fully manufactured”: why Heath Ledger worried he’d been “spoon-fed” his career
Some actors spend their whole careers trying to secure their big break, but for others, it just comes before they can even have time to adjust. All of a sudden, they’re everywhere.
Of course, this often leads people to accuse certain stars of being industry plants or nepo babies – and familial connections often do play a big part, let’s not deny it. But when a star is truly successful, you have to give them credit where credit’s due. Some actors really do have enough talent to shoot them to stardom.
It’s all just luck of the draw, though, and certain actors simply land in the hands of producers and filmmakers who do all they can to transform a star into the ideal Hollywood icon. That’s how the late Heath Ledger felt, once claiming that his career was “manufactured,” in a way.
The actor began to pursue his career as a teenager, appearing on a few Australian shows, like Home and Away, until moving to Hollywood, where he instantly became a heartthrob with his role in the teen romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. Alongside the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Julia Stiles, Ledger carried the comedy to great heights, even performing a charming rendition of Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ on the bleachers.
It proved to be a legendary moment in Ledger’s career, and before he knew it, he was starring alongside Mel Gibson in The Patriot and leading the medieval comedy A Knight’s Tale. Major roles continued to be thrown Ledger’s way, and he quickly racked up roles in the likes of the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain, as well as I’m Not There, Ned Kelly, and The Brothers Grimm.
Then came his career-defining role in The Dark Knight as the Joker, a performance that would earn him a posthumous Academy Award. He gave his all to the character, going full method by shutting himself away from society and keeping a diary that helped him get into the mindset of someone as twisted and immoral as the Joker.
Of course, Ledger wouldn’t get anywhere if he didn’t have the genuine talent to pull off such challenging roles, especially the Joker, but he did believe that the way he secured his career felt rather unnatural. “In a way, I was spoon-fed, if you will, a career. It was fully manufactured by a studio that believed that they could put me on their posters and turn me into their bottle of Coca-Cola, their product,” he told Time Magazine.
This made him slightly anxious, because he felt like he’d truly been tossed into the deep end, and he didn’t have much choice other than just giving it his best shot. “I hadn’t figured out properly how to act, and all of a sudden, I was being thrown into these lead roles. I didn’t have the black room and the black pyjamas to prance around making mistakes in private. All my mistakes are on the screen,” he said.
Ledger never felt like he had a chance to pursue anything other than what he was given, and while he was great in every role, there was clearly something that bothered him about the direction his career was going in. “I wanted to scrub it all away and start again, to see what my abilities are, if there are any.”
