Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law had taken over the roles of Heath Ledger after he died. Heath was filming the movie The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, where Heath’s character was in a traveling troupe and makes a deal with the devil. Terry Gilliam said that he can change into different people and that’s where Johnny, Colin and Jude came in. Without that flexibility Heath may not have been able to stay in the film.

When Johnny, Colin and Jude found out that Heath had left behind an old will with all of his money going to his dad, the guys thought they could help by donating their paychecks from the film to Heath’s daughter, Matilda, so she would be taken care of.

Director Terry Gilliam now in post-production on the film says of his leading men,“The three actors were totally heroic coming in. This doesn’t happen very often . . . where there’s a tragedy like this, and very famous, very successful actors suddenly say, ‘Okay, we’ll do whatever it takes to help.’ They came; they did the work; they allowed the movie to be finished; they didn’t take money–the money goes to Heath’s daughter. That’s extraordinary! And wonderful . . . and when you’re part of that, you think, ‘Ah, this is maybe why I went into the movies, in the beginning. I thought it would be full of wonderful people.’ And in our case, we’ve got a movie full of wonderful people, who did extraordinary things to help.”

I am so glad these guys are so humble. That’s why they make a great addition to the film. It will be bittersweet seeing this movie knowing he was filming it only days before he died. This picture still hurts to see because as we all know he did die a couple of days after this picture was taken. My thoughts will always be with Heath.

photo and source