Heath Ledger Quotations

I like to set up obstacles and defeat them.

There's nothing like working with your mates - it's the way it should be, as far as I'm concerned.

I feel like I'm wasting time if I repeat myself.

I'm in control of my life, not anyone in Hollywood.

You learn more about yourself through your child, I guess.

Had I listened to my agent, I'd be running around in tights, climbing buildings and stuff.

I'm still a kid. I'm like six years old. But it's just a matter of wanting to get up, it's just a big journey. I felt like when I left home that I was on a journey, and I still am.

Anyone that has a job that takes them away from home, I think, can understand the difficulties in maintaining consistency, not only with your family and those you love but with your friends.

If you make decisions based upon people's reactions or judgments then you make really boring choices.

If you are just safe about the choices you make, you don't grow.

If you're just safe about the choices you make, you don't grow.

I'm not good at future planning. I don't plan at all. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't have a day planner and I don't have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future.

The reason that you dance and sing is to make the audience feel like they're dancing and singing. As long as you're having fun with it and giving it 100 percent, they're gonna feel that.

I generally don't think most situations can be labeled as black or white.

I only do this because I'm having fun. The day I stop having fun, I'll just walk away.

I never took an acting class, so I've made all my mistakes on film.

I'm just not one of those naturally funny, relaxed actors who enjoy the spotlight and are so good at it.

I feel like I've never been in a film that people have liked before.

When I started to watch some of the films I'd done, I realized I was doing movies that I might not actually want to see.

If you spend all day on horseback, and you hop off, you walk around like you still have a horse between your legs. And it affects your shoulders. They fall.

I don't have that much forward planning about what I want to do next, or in the future.

I don't feel like I have anything to lose, so I don't really understand what I'm putting at risk.

I love acting and I have a lot of fun.

It's odd, that's why I don't like telling people I played field hockey. It's real big in Australia for guys. But I say I played in America, and everybody goes, 'Oh, you girl!'

It's kind of a rule of thumb for me to self-doubt going into any kind of project. I always think that I shouldn't be doing it and I don't know how to do it and I'm going to fail and that I fooled them. I always try to find a way out.

It's rare that there's a role that requires an Australian accent.

I've never figured out who 'Heath Ledger' is on film: 'This is what you expect when you hire me, and it will be recognizable.'

In order not to hold a frame with someone, you have to be intimidated by them.

It can be a little distressing to have to overintellectualize yourself.

I felt like my career was out of my hands.

I don't know, as long as I get to evolve and grow as an actor and as a person, that's the stuff I'm after.

My life is together, both professionally and socially.

I never want to feel like I've achieved my goal. It's like Chinese farmers. They never admit that it's a good season. They feel like they'll be punished.

In a way, I was spoon-fed, if you will, a career. It was fully manufactured by a studio that believed that they could put me on their posters and turn me into their bottle of Coca-Cola, their product.

In my opinion, New York City police officers are brave.

When I'm not acting, I do like to take a year off at a time, at least if I can, just in order to keep acting exciting - otherwise I get bored very quickly.

When I first started acting, I was just crap.

I thought, I need to be more cautious about my choices - it reflects on who I am.

I didn't want to raise my child in Hollywood.

I wasn't going to have fun doing a teen movie again.

I have a lot of great distractions outside of acting.

I want to do theatre. I love theatre.

I am not a public speaker and never will be.

You know, I'm not in a hurry, and everybody else in Hollywood - particularly agents and managers - they're all in a hurry.

Working in Venice was like a four-month guided tour of the city. It was like shooting a film inside a museum.

We were trying to contrast each other a little bit. We wanted to present different qualities as brothers, but also have similarities ... like the fact that we wouldn't stand with these brave faces in the face of danger. We would scream like little girls, cower and run away.

So hopefully that (situation) will continue and I won't have to come back, ... I would much rather work in Europe than America.

but that is also what makes it exciting.

I have kind of been living out of bags for the past 13 years. I will just stick to that, ... Home is, like, Earth. I don't care where I land. I am actually thinking of going to live in Italy. The food and the wine are great there. That's it really.

From 18 to 22, I was alone, living in L.A. with a bunch of friends, partying.

I was really lucky that my character was uncomfortable with it and knew it too. So I could use my own level of discomfort, because it was new and strange for me, and that worked for me.

I wasn't prepared to expose stories about something so special and wonderfully private that is happening in my life. I guess a part of me wishes that I'd never have to and that maybe I could protect this special time. I was dreaming.

My character was extremely lonely and I think I carried that feeling through the whole filming experience.

Thousands of women were falling in love with him all the time. So when he finally finds a woman who isn't attracted to any of that, that's what really devastates him, and interests him.

throwing eggs at them. I purposely don't hit anybody because they'd turn around and sue me. I was lobbing the eggs at the rocks next to them. It's all you can do.

was a very lonely experience, but it was supposed to be.

I sort of took my career and destroyed it,

This felt like something that hadn't been done.

This is a fairytale version, ... They're con men.

It's the most exciting time of my life,

It was an opportunity not to take acting too seriously. We obviously weren't taking Casanova too seriously. Essentially we were borrowing his name and his legend and just having fun with it.

It was like shooting a movie inside a museum.

It took a delicate man to tell this story, and that's you.

I flipped through his journals and then it was (history) out the window. We were making it into a romp. We wanted to have a clean slate and just have fun.

I flipped through his journals and then it was (history) out the window, ... We were making it into a romp. We wanted to have a clean slate and just have fun.

I had such a great experience with Terry on The Brothers Grimm that I vowed I'd look for other roles and films that would challenge me and offer me roles I'd never tackled before. I really wanted to stretch myself as an actor.

I felt this was such a refreshing story of love. For me, our characters were also complex, and to...really investigate this form of humanity and expression of love was an opportunity that I hadn't had.

Casanova was a person who really fell in love with every woman, as opposed to Don Juan, ... I also have an appreciation for love -- just not that many.

And I love Matt and I loved working with him, ... He's a generous person, he's a generous actor, and (smirking) he's a fantastic tango dancer.

We're actors at the end of the day. I don't take it home with me. My experience outside of work, I love... when I hear wrap, it's the most exciting part of my day. I'm the first to have my make-up off, in the car, out. I've gotta go home. I want to get back to my life. I love it back there.

I'm sure drugs and alcohol perhaps would inspire new thoughts, but it's certainly not something that I use as a tool or a mechanism to create.

I'm not a big fan of western movies and I really don't like cowboy-indian movies. I have never watched them.

The first memory I have, anyway, I guess - I think it was my second birthday and the cake came out with the candles and I was very excited and I was, like, "Oh! A cake!" and then my cousin blew out the candles. I was so disappointed. It just broke my heart. And so that's stamped in my brain.

My nervous energy is usually the easiest form of energy to tap into.

You have to be willing to be manipulated in the first place because you can either recognize that in your director and then fight it because you don't trust them, but I'm not going to let them manipulate me. Or you think they're on to something and that they're manipulating something out of you which is interesting and new.

If having true love and love that is expressive and free outside of work affects a project where you have to be restrained and in denial and fixed and closed off. This doesn't mean you go out and just destroy your love outside of your life and kind of mirror your movie.

I think your personal evolution runs hand in hand with your professional evolution. Performance and the person you are kind of grow simultaneously.

I've never had high expectations of my work and I certainly am not going to let that plague my thoughts. I'm just going to continue to choose what feels right for me at the time and go with it.

I'm born to be a father. And I've been looking forward to this all my life.

In the birthing process, you come out just realizing how stupid and weak men are! I mean, I might as well not have been in there, we're useless!

I believe acting truly is harnessing the power of belief.

The Australian sense of humor is very dry, sarcastic, and very undercover. Like if I tell any jokes in America, people just think I'm serious! So I just quit telling any jokes whatsoever.

I never really cared much for Hollywood or movies. But the curiosity for filmmaking, and expanding myself as an actor and my curiosity for people and portraying them, just has grown. And that's from simply being involved in the industry. But it was never a goal of mine as a kid.

My mom and my dad never pushed me into performing. They never prohibited me from trying anything, or being anything. They never restricted me in any way. For which I'll be forever grateful.

A little fight in you. I like that.

[I'm] an extremely private dude and all this is happening so damn quick. I really haven't had any time to rationalize it. But it's nothing that I'm going to let freak me out or take control of me or my thoughts or my real life.

From 18 to 22, I was alone, living in L.A. with a bunch of friends, partying.

It's a little uncomfortable doing love scenes in armor, but, you know, when the heat's on, the heat's on.

I have never had great expectations of my performance or of a film. I try not to think about the outcome. If you look that far ahead, it sort of taints your choices as an actor. I try as hard as I can to believe that no one is ever going to see it and that it's not even a movie. Then you can allow yourself to bare more. Then, once a project is done, I tend to forget about it until it comes out.

I do keep pre-occupied.

Does it depress you? To know just how alone you really are?

Nobody panics when things go “according to plan”. Even if the plan is horrifying!

Let's put a smile on that face!

But the paparazzi are quite malicious and vocal and really rude, ... And they camped outside of my house, so I started throwing eggs at them, lobbing them at rocks next to them.

Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos, I’m an agent of chaos , and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair.

It's like anything in life, visualizing the old man you're going to become: As long as you have a clear picture of that — the life you want to lead — eventually you'll probably get there.

Want know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not one bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me, and he says, 'why so serious?' He comes at me with the knife. 'Why so serious?!'. He sticks the blade in my mouth. 'Let's put a smile on that face!' And why so serious?

I apologize for my terrible interview skills.

I'm kind of addicted to moving.

I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices - it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath - someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts