R.I.P. Heath Ledger

 

Yesterday was a sad sad day. Actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment after an apparent accidental drug overdose. As I mourned the death of an actor I had grown up watching in films, I searched for more information as the article I was reading from was strangley vauge. Was it an intentional overdose or an accident? Was he alone? What will happen to his two year old daughter? But I soon discovered that there are lines between not enough information and too much. There are pictures on the internet of the police searching his apartment that appear to be taken by someone’s cell phone through the window. We as a society are obsessed with knowing the most microscopic details about celebrities, but there has to be a line somewhere. Today, I read the first article that came up when I googled heath ledger found here.  Now they are saying that his overdose appears to be accidental but the autopsy was inconclusive. Yesterday there were only pill bottles for anxiety and insomnia and today according to this new article there are allegedly six different prescriptions found “all over” the bedroom and bathroom. Today there is magically a rolled up 20 dollar bill on the night stand that is being tested for drug residue that wasn’t there yesterday. How long will it take until the media turns this tragedy into a horror story of “Ledger’s deep dark secrets” and ruin what should be a respectful mourning period for a human being that has passed away. Although it is true that we do not know yet if he intended to take his own life or not, there is no reason for this to become a media circus. 

Dear Val Kilmer, I can portray you better than you can yourself.

I guess I should preface this by saying that this post has nothing to to with Chuck Klosterman really even though Chuck Klosterman is one of my favorite pop culture writers. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a website for me to link to, but all you need to know is that he is a journalist that formerly wrote for spin magazine (spin.com) and that I own all of his published books including Chuck Klostertman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas. In this book, which is a collection of essays and interviews with famous people over the years there is an interview he did with Val Kilmer at his ranch house in 2005.Don’t get me wrong, I love Val Kilmer. I think he’s funny, I think he’s sexy, but the man is a little weird. For one thing, he rarely gives interviews, which is okay I guess if you like your privacy, but the more they talk the more it is apparent why he never gives interviews; especially when they talk about acting, a subject that Val rarely discusses with anyone. Val Kilmer is a method actor. It comes up in the interview that he seems to play a lot of characters who are “drug-addled drunks” and Klosterman does in fact half expect Kilmer to be drunk during the interview since every story you hear about the man paints him as completely out of his mind. Klosterman assures us that Kilmer is neither drunk nor crazy, but there is definately something off about him. The subjects of method acting and drug abuse inevitably lead them to Kilmer’s roles in the movies Wonderland and The Doors in which he plays self destructive drug addicts. When asked if he ever had a drug phase in his life, Kilmer says no, but he “comepletely understands the mind-set of addiction” and from there they spiral into the most confusing conversation I have ever read. At one point while discussing the 1993 western Tombstone, Kilmer says:”"It’s not like I believed that I actually shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone’s life” This makes no sense.He continues to go on and say that not only does he know how it feels to shoot someone he knows how it feels more because he has spent his life mentally training for it. He can stand on stage a portray a war vet better than a real life war vet because, that person what not prepared mentally to go to war, while Val Kilmer read a few books about it and mentally prepared himself.I don’t think so.I think Val Kilmer is full of it. If he really did actually shoot someone maybe then he would be able to portray it on the same level as the person who actually shot someone. Not before. He may know what it is like to fire a gun, to pull a trigger, to see blood pour out of someone’s body, but guess what; inside that gun was a blank, that blood that he sees is fake and that actor is going to get up when the take is done and go on his merry way.  At one point Klosterman asks him, if they made a movie about Val Kilmer’s life and cast Jude Law to play him, would Jude Law, if successful, be able to know what it was like to be Val Kilmer better than himself? By his own logic he would have to say yes, but big surprise, he says no. Apparently, it would be impossible because Kilmer is an actor and has too much self knowledge, however if Jude Law was portraying Kilmer as a teen, he would absolutely know what that was like waaaay better that teen Val Kilmer.This is the point where the conversation has lost all logic. Long story short, Val Kilmer really is crazy and if I became an actor I would know what that is like way better than the real Val Kilmer.