iamiam

I brought this up a few times within some TDK threads but no one responded. Although Heath Ledger's Joker was an amazing performance, I can not ignore the fact that he was going through drug problems at the time. In fact, some of the "performance" seemed coke-induced. Is this topic inappropriate to discuss?

GoldenJCJ

I can't say I believe he a coke-induced performance. IMO, a good actor can "act" like they're on drugs and turn in a very good performance. An actor that's actually on drugs during filming thinks he's turning in a brilliant performance when in reality it's an incoherent mess.

Doc MacGyver

Exactly. Johnny Depp mentioned this on the Fear & Loathing Commentary and Tommy Chong has said it a number of times, too. People always say things to them like, "You guys must have been so high during that movie!" And they're always dissapointed to learn, "No... it's all fake. If we actually got baked/yipped-up/tanked, there's no way we'd remember our lines. It would be an incoherent mess... and not the good kind."

Good acting that makes it LOOK like you're on drugs: Fear & Loathing
Terrible acting while ACTUALLY ON drugs: Illegal Aliens (Anna Nicole Smith - do a google search, the outtakes are hysterical)



-Doc

RichC2

No, but you'll probably have a hard time convincing people it was anything other than acting. He didn't seem coked up at all to me.

Reminds me of the recent Pineapple Express aftermath that James Franco had, he hasn't smoked anything illicit since high school and people still offer him pot non-stop assuming he's a stoner.

iamiam

You're comparing acting skills of Johnny Depp with Anna Nicole? Drugs or not, there's no comparison. You don't think actors get a little drunk to act out out a drunken scene, never heard that?

Doc MacGyver

Ha, yeah I know. The "Acting" isn't even comparable, but my point was that she couldn't REMEMBER her lines. The director is off-camera whispering them to her. And no, I've never heard of that. Actors normally enjoy pretending to be drunk over actually getting drunk, because while they would BE drunk on screen, they wouldn't be in-character, on-mark or even remotely close tot he dialogue.


-Doc

RichC2

Oh and what drug problems was he going through at the time?

iamiam

You name it, he was doing it, Heroin, Cocaine, prescription drugs.

RichC2

Links? Prescription drugs aside. Not doubting it, just haven't read anything on it outside of that alleged video bit.

iamiam

Google is your friend,

http://www.google.com/search?q=heath...ient=firefox-a

Solid Snake

Was that ever officially proven?

back on topic: No, I don't think Ledger was on drugs while filming his scenes for TDK. And like they said after you..a great actor can act like he's drugged up but he isn't. I mean...I know of Elizabeth Taylor being drunk a lot when she filmed some of her old films. My film teacher even has footage of this she recorded when she was a lot younger, it's sad really. Strapping Taylor in a chair and whatnot...I can't even remember what she was wearing..but her head was bobbing in a drunken stupor for sure. I've never seen any of her films, and I've never really presented myself to do so, but she's played on screen while drunk. Are there any performances on film that we know they were coked up, high, whatever?

Shannon Nutt

Not if you're David Walker...he spent half of his DVD Talk review of Mr. Brooks telling us how Kevin Costner loved his weed.

RichC2

Uhm... No actually, that didn't help at all.

iamiam

Results 1 - 10 of about 252,000 for heath ledger drug problems. (0.23 seconds)

You checked all 252,000 links?

RichC2

Most being rehashes of one another and reports reporting on the same reports from the same "a person that claims they know a person that saw", I got bored around 112,000... at which point it switched to porn anyhow. Just thought you had something more concrete, that I hadn't seen, based on your initial post is all.

iamiam

I call BS

Actually on second page, there's a Salon article that's interesting.