I know this will come across as callous, but all the hub bub about Heath Ledger and the fact that many members of the media are practically already giving him the Oscar for his performance and trying to[size=-2] (edit mode here - villify) [/size] GLORIFY him as some kind of James Dean like icon is really driving me crazy!
Could he act, yes, and at times very well. But come on, this guy had what it appeared that he desired, fame, money, professional respect, a healthy young child, etc, etc, etc. And his life was just so "miserable" that he couldn't deal with it and needed some pills to help him along. Come on now.
Bottomline, he was an actor, not a hero. The real heroes are the unsung members of his age demographic that risk there lives day in and day out without any widespread media attention and/or millions of dollars of income in our military.
Ledger was young and impressionable. He battled depression and he made bad choices like many young people do. And he wound up killing himself. Stupid.
That does not take away from his acting talent. And he is brilliant as the Joker in this movie...brilliant. He captures the insanity and over the top nature of the character.
I think he does deserve the Oscar for this performance...just as I thought Jack Nicholson deserved it for his portrayal of the Joker in the very first Batman movie...another brilliant performance.