Had he lived, Heath Ledger would have celebrated his 45th birthday earlier this month. But, tragically, the world lost the gifted Australian actor at only 28 years old due to an accidental overdose back in 2008, the same year he gave one of the greatest villain performances of all time as the Joker in The Dark Knight, for which he posthumously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. And in the feature-length documentary I Am Heath Ledger—airing on TV tonight, April 13—friends and family of the late actor come together to remember his life, career and legacy.
Directed by Adrian Buitenhuis and Derik Murray, the 94-minute film chronicles Ledger's rise to fame from his native Perth, Australia to Hollywood, where he became a leading man in the late 1990s and early 2000s in films like 10 Things I Hate About You—which is airing on Sunday on The CW at 7pm Eastern, in case you want a whole Heath Ledger-themed weekend—The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Lords of Dogtown and Brokeback Mountain.
The doc interweaves homemade videos from Heath himself with archival footage and interviews from the actor's colleagues, family and close friends, including Naomi Watts, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Emile Hirsch, Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, musician Ben Harper and more. Though actress Michelle Williams, who notably was in a relationship with Ledger from 2004 to 2007 and who is the mother of his daughter Matilda, does not appear in the documentary, it was reported by The Los Angeles Times that Ledger's family didn't agree to participate in the film until Williams "gave her blessing."
I Am Heath Ledger will air tonight on The CW from 8pm to 10pm ET. The documentary film is readily available for anyone with a traditional pay-TV subscription or TV antenna that receives local station signals, as well as live TV streaming subscribers to Fubo, Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV and YouTube TV.
The film is yet another installment in the "I Am" documentary franchise, a series of celebrity biography docs that were commissioned for the Paramount Network and now are airing on The CW. Similar star-focused titles including I Am Burt Reynolds, I Am Paul Walker and I Am Patrick Swayze, all of which were also directed by Buitenhuis.
Check out the trailer for I Am Heath Ledger before tuning in to the special documentary tonight on The CW.
