Mourners placed flowers outside Ledger's Manhattan loft. Photo by: J.Graylock / JPI |
Still, Ledger was upset that he didn't get to spend the holidays with his daughter; Williams took her to Sweden, where she was filming a movie, and Ledger flew back to Perth to spend Christmas with his family. After that, Ledger – who had just wrapped an intense role as the Joker in the Batman epic
The Dark Knight – returned to London to begin work on another movie,
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. On Jan. 19, three days before his death, Ledger finished a string of 15-hour days of filming in London. "We all caught colds because we were shooting outside on horrible, damp nights," says his costar, the veteran actor Christopher Plummer. "I think Heath had walking pneumonia." What's more, recalls Plummer, "he was saying all the time, 'Dammit, I can't sleep,' and he was taking all these pills."
When filming wrapped, Ledger flew back to New York. In the 48 hours leading up to his death, he was spotted buying coffee in two of his regular haunts and walking around the neighborhood with his iPod on. He spoke with and made plans to meet friends, including Christensen and Deepak Chopra. "He was a little depressed about not having seen his daughter over the holidays," says Chopra. "He said, 'I'm missing my girl, that's all.' And he mentioned that he hadn't slept and was exhausted."
