Devastating new details emerge on Heath Ledger's death
<p>New details have emerged about the hours after Heath Ledger's death, as a Hollywood director has shared how he found out about Ledger's passing. </p>
<p>Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York loft on January 22nd 2008, with his death being ruled as an accidental overdose and attributed to a mixture of prescription drugs, including OxyContin, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Unisom and Restoril.</p>
<p>Now, 16 years on from the high profile death, Hollywood director Stephen Gaghan has shared how he found out about Heath's death. </p>
<p>At the time of his passing, Ledger and Gaghan were working together on an adaptation of Malcolm Gladwell’s novel <em>Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking</em>.</p>
<p>Appearing on Malcolm Gladwell's <em>Revisionist History</em> podcast, in which the novelist discusses abandoned projects, Gaghan recalled getting a phone call from Ledger's father when his body was found. </p>
<p>“They were there with the body and our script was in bed with him, and your book was on the bedside table,” he said on the podcast.</p>
<p>“I think my number was on the script, like written. These guys, as you can imagine, they are in shock and they dialled that number and I don’t know why.”</p>
<p>“I’m in an airport with my wife [Minnie Mortimer] just going from one place to another, and I literally just collapse, never happened to me before or since,” the director added. “My feet went out from under me. I just literally sat down because I was like, ‘What?’"</p>
<p>"The emotion, what they were going through, I should not have been a party to in any way really, and yet as a human or as somebody who just cares, I just was there and I was listening and my wife was looking at me."</p>
<p>"I remember her face and I was just like, I was speechless. I just listened and listened and listened. It was just really, really sad. And it’s still sad. For me, I just had to put a pin in it.”</p>
<p>When discussing the adaptation of <em>Blink</em>, Gaghan shared how Leo DiCaprio was originally in on the film idea, and how the part of the lead seemed to be written especially for Ledger. </p>
<p>“I’d gotten to be very, very close with him instantly,” Gaghan recalled. “I just had a real connection with him that was kind of unusual and really special to me. I got really excited and I started seeing him as the main character."</p>
<p>"Once I started seeing that I couldn’t unsee it, and obviously it was very delicate in a way. Leo’s totally cool. I mean, obviously, he has a thousand choices, but in my mind it was a big deal.”</p>
<p>Gaghan soon abandoned the revived project after Ledger’s untimely death.</p>
<p><em>Image credits: Getty Images </em></p>
