Heath Ledger Seemed Confident The Dark Knight Would Be A Smash Hit

Andrew Garfield didn't work with the late Heath Ledger for long, but their collaboration came at a crucial time in his career. The "Spider-Man: No Way Home" star worked with the beloved actor shortly after Ledger played Joker in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight." That performance would eventually net Ledger a posthumous Oscar for his now-legendary work as Batman's greatest foe in what is widely considered to be one of the greatest comic book movies ever made. And according to Garfield, it seems as though Ledger was pretty confident about the film, even though he never got to see the world react to it.

During a recent episode of the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, host Josh Horowitz broached the topic of Ledger, who tragically died at the age of 28 several months before "The Dark Knight" came out. Before that, Ledger partially filmed 2009's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," in which Garfield also starred. While on the set, Garfield inquired about Nolan's forthcoming "Batman Begins" sequel, and Ledger was apparently confident enough to be somewhat smug about its prospects. As Garfield remembered with a smile:

"He was so smug about it. I was like, 'How did that go?' and he was like, 'Yeah, it's really good.'"

In fairness to the smugness, Ledger was very right — if anything, he was underselling it. "The Dark Knight" took the world by storm, majorly outperforming "Batman Begins" and becoming one of very few movies to cross the $1 billion mark at the box office at that time. To this day, there is a quiet outrage over the fact that the film wasn't nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. More than a good movie, it became an instant classic, with Ledger often cited as one of the best villains in cinema history.

Ledger didn't win that Oscar because he died young, he won because he gave a performance for the ages, elevating what already would have been a great film into something beyond great. So it seems fair for him to recognize that Nolan was onto something good with "The Dark Knight."

Garfield also spoke a bit more about the late actor, recalling that confidence wasn't the only emotion Ledger felt about his work. Garfield, who is currently promoting his new movie "We Live in Time," remembered Ledger disliking a bit of promotion he had to do at the time for Empire Magazine:

"I remember his Empire Magazine cover came out and he was like, 'Oh, they used a f***ing s*** photo.' And I was like, 'Are you kidding me, dude that looks f***ing incredible.' And he was like, 'Nah, the pose is all wrong, it looks kinda like a conventional version of what an actor ... you'll see.' And yeah, I did see."

Garfield also revealed that Ledger once gave him a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. Garfield had complimented them, and Ledger then gifted them to him. But it wasn't just the glasses. The actor had nothing but nice things to say about his late co-star, paying him a host of compliments elsewhere in the interview:

"He was just a very generous, beautiful, creative spirit. He was a kind of beacon. It was like a wild animal. He was so free and so wild and so kind of dangerous on set in a way that was the kind of thing that is inspiring and spontaneous. He would say before every take, or one take every scene, 'Let's have some fun with this one.'"

Ledger probably had an awful lot left to give as an actor. Aside from the fact that Joker likely would have had some sort of role to play in "The Dark Knight Rises," one can only imagine the offers that would have been on his desk in the aftermath of his Oscar win. We'll never know what could have been, but it's nice to hear him spoken of so fondly all these years later.

"The Dark Knight" is currently streaming on Max, or you can pick up a 4K copy on Amazon.