My god.
A fine actor, who was not only in one of my favorite dramas (Brokeback Mountain), but two delightful comedies (Ten Things I Hate About You, The Knight’s Tale). Very, very sad.
Wow, someone’s already changed his article to “was”'s and his death date up.
Cnn just said that, “Authorities believe it was drug related.”
So I know this makes me a bad person, but I want to know how this affects the Batman movie. I would assume that all the primary shooting is done, but now he obviously won’t be available for reshoots. And not a sequel either.
Wha??
Holy cow…
It might be an accidental overdose.
His Wikipedia article says “heroin was found in his bloodstream.” The Times article mentions that pills were around.
Too early to tell, but this reminds me of Michael Hutchence’s death over 10 years ago. Young, great-looking Australian guy found dead. Intentional or accidental?
Oh, MAN! What a shame!
I wonder what this will do (if anything) to the release of The Dark Knight.
I know it’s done filming and is in post-production but it’s got to be tough to have a premire when one of the leads is dead.
I hope this is not true or at least he was just unconscious and they’ll be able to bring him back.
I liked pretty much everything he was in and was hopeful he would turn into a really great actor.
I saw that, but neither of the cites given say anything about heroin.
Add to that one of the few movies (the new Batman) that I’m currently looking forward to.
Very sad. And his poor child. 
The thing it’s most likely to affect is looping, since I’d be surprised if all the ADR is completed yet. That’s something they may be able to work around, though with as action-oriented as that film’s likely to be, there’s probably a lot of dialogue that still will probably need to be dubbed (since what was recorded on set isn’t likely to be completely usable).
Damn it; really impressive young actor.
I’ve merged the two threads about this, so if any posts seems out of order, that’s why.
Was he a friend of yours?
Huh?
Another link:
http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2008/01/22/nypd_actor_heath_ledger_found_dead_in_nyc_building/
For what it’s worth, he recently starred in a movie about heroin addiction, and according to all reports (I didn’t see it) was excellent in the role. One wonders if he was drawing on actual experience during the movie, or if he was clean at the time but doing the movie somehow interested him in the subject.
Wow, that is surprising! Just yesterday I was talking about how much I loved Brokeback Mountain (and about how often I’ve watched that scene in Ten Things I Hate About You where he sings to the girl). Very sad.
And I’m sorry for not expressing this sooner, but . Truly a gifted actor with Brokeback Mountain suggesting he might’ve had a phenomenal career ahead of him.