Heath Ledger’s Unfulfilled Dream: The Role He Chased

If you’ve got a bit of downtime over the break, it’s worth giving Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight another spin. Ranked as the fourth greatest action flick on IMDb, it’s a cracking reminder of just how good Ledger was as the Joker. His take on the character is nothing like the usual villains—there’s a raw edge, a sense of chaos, and a bleakness that sticks with you. It’s no wonder he got so wrapped up in the role, sometimes struggling to draw the line between the film and real life.

Ledger had already made a name for himself in Hollywood before Nolan brought him on board, but this was the part that really showed what he could do. Tragically, the recognition came after his death at just 28. He picked up an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, but Nolan had to finish editing the film after Ledger passed away, keeping the scenes in the order they were shot. It was a tough ask, and even collecting Ledger’s awards the next year, Nolan admitted he was still finding it hard to cope.

Ledger’s Fascination with Nick Drake

In the year before he died, Ledger spoke about feeling a connection with another young, gifted artist whose life was cut short—Nick Drake, a British folk singer. Drake’s music, released in the late ‘60s, barely got noticed at the time. He was painfully shy, hardly spoke on stage, but managed to put out three albums—Pink Moon, Bryter Layter, and Five Leaves Left—that were lush, inventive, and full of unique guitar work. Like Ledger, Drake died young, at 26, from an overdose of antidepressants. It took years for people to realise just how important his music was, and even now, plenty are only just discovering him.

While promoting the Bob Dylan film I’m Not There in 2007, Ledger said,

“I was obsessed with an artist by the name of Nick Drake. I was obsessed with his story and his music, and I pursued it for a while, and [I] still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day. But it kind of died away, faded away, because I… He was a very mysterious figure, and I felt like I would be taking too many liberties.”

The Biopic That Never Happened

Ledger never got the chance to play Drake, and no one else has either. There’s a well-regarded documentary from 2002, A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, but no one’s had a crack at a full biopic. Maybe it’s because Drake’s life wasn’t packed with drama—he just made music that deserved a bigger audience and died before he could see its impact. In 1974, he was gone, long before his work got the recognition it deserved.

To show his respect, Ledger put together a short black-and-white video for an exhibition honouring Drake. The singer’s estate called it “extremely moving”, a fitting tribute from one artist to another whose stories both ended far too soon.