HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Michelle Williams and several other stars are sharing their favorite memories of late actor Heath Ledger in the April issue of Interview magazine.
"I think the interesting thing about Heath, which maybe people have only really fully discovered in his death, is how vulnerable he was," the 27-year-old Williams says of Ledger, who died from an accidental overdose on Jan. 22 in New York City.
"You can pick it up on it in his performances, but it's easy to overlook because he was so physical and beautiful and strong and masculine," Williams adds. "But there was always that underlying sensitivity. That's who he was."
Williams and Ledger met on the set of the 2005 film "Brokeback Mountain," in which they played husband and wife. A romance quickly blossomed between the two and they eventually had a daughter together, Matilda, now 2. The couple later went their separate ways in September, 2007.
The actress says Ledger, who was 28 when he died, always struggled with his sleep.
"For as long as I'd known him, he had bouts with insomnia," she reveals. "He had too much energy. His mind was turning, turning turning — always turning."
"He had a talent for everything that he put his mind to," she continues. He didn't know limits."
Written as a conversation, the article features several more stars sharing their favorite memories of the Oscar-nominated actor:
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
"Whenever Heath talked about something he liked, he did it in the way that any fan would. He wasn't somebody trying to cover up his excitement about something, or someone."
Todd Haynes
"That performance in 'Brokeback Mountain' was such a sensitive, understated, controlled interpretation of this character. The entire emotional power of that film, which is enormous, resides in that performance, and how much Heath holds in."
Ellen DeGeneres
"He didn't try to be something that he wasn't. And I appreciated that."
Naomi Watts
He was a huge, obsessive, chess freak — and very, very good at it."
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