Heath Ledger is Dead, Jack Nicholson is Kind of a Prick
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know by now that Australian actor Heath Ledger met his untimely death last Tuesday, January 22nd in his Soho apartment. If you’re interested in the details, Wikipedia has a nice recap, you morbid bastard.
Myself, I’m more interested in the reaction others have had to the news of Heath’s death. In particular, a one Mr. Jack Nicholson. It appears that Jack is still more than a little miffed by the fact that he was passed over for the role of the Joker in the upcoming Batman flick - The Dark Knight. As such, he’s felt the need to let the world know that “I told him so”.
Nicholson Warned Ledger About Joker Role
Jack Nicholson has hinted he warned tragic Heath Ledger against taking on the role of The Joker in the new Batman film. Ledger, 28 - who was declared dead at 3:30pm at his Manhattan apartment on Tuesday - publicly declared himself exhausted and sleep deprived in November following the grueling shoot for The Dark Knight. He also revealed in an interview with the New York Times he’d resorted to taking sleeping pills - an overdose of which is believed to be the cause of his death - in a desperate bid to catch up on rest. And Nicholson, who famously portrayed the menacing Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie Batman, implied to the waiting crowd outside plush London restaurant The Wolesley on Tuesday night he spoke to Ledger about his role in The Dark Knight - and warned him about the pitfalls of taking on such a demanding challenge. When asked by the London crowds for his reaction to Ledger’s untimely demise, a defeated Nicholson simply replied, “I told him so.” Batman Begins prequel The Dark Knight is due to be released in July.
Now I like Jack Nicholson as an actor and he was great as the Joker in the original Batman, but really, Heath Ledger playing the Joker is what killed him? Last time I checked, filming had wrapped for The Dark Knight and Ledger was currently working on Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. If anything beyond a drug overdose is to blame for killing Heath Ledger, it was obviously this guy.
