These are some very kind and inter­est­ing words recant­ing Heath Ledger’s on set aura, as told by Chris Nolan (via Newsweek)

One night, as I’m stand­ing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, try­ing to line up a shot for “The Dark Knight,” a pro­duc­tion assis­tant skate­boards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full char­ac­ter makeup. I’d fret­ted about the reac­tion of Bat­man fans to a skate­board­ing Joker, but the actual result was a pro­lif­er­a­tion of skate­boards among the younger crew mem­bers. If you’d asked those kids why they had cho­sen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered hon­estly that they didn’t know. That’s real charisma—as invis­i­ble and nat­ural as grav­ity. That’s what Heath had.

Heath was burst­ing with cre­ativ­ity. It was in his every ges­ture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was cre­atively hun­gry. Until he needed it again. He brought that atti­tude to our set every day. There aren’t many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you com­plain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.

One time he and another actor were shoot­ing a com­plex scene. We had two days to shoot it, and at the end of the first day, they’d really found some­thing and Heath was wor­ried that he might not have it if we stopped. He wanted to carry on and fin­ish. It’s tough to ask the crew to work late when we all know there’s plenty of time to fin­ish the next day. But every­one seemed to under­stand that Heath had some­thing spe­cial and that we had to cap­ture it before it dis­ap­peared. Months later, I learned that as Heath left the set that night, he qui­etly thanked each crew mem­ber for work­ing late. Qui­etly. Not try­ing to make a point, just grate­ful for the chance to cre­ate that they’d given him.

Those nights on the streets of Chicago were filled with stunts. These can be bor­ing times for an actor, but Heath was fas­ci­nated, eagerly accept­ing our invi­ta­tion to ride in the cam­era car as we chased vehi­cles through movie traffic—not just for the thrill ride, but to be a part of it. Of every­thing. He’d brought his lap­top along in the car, and we had a high-speed screen­ing of two of his works-in-progress: short films he’d made that were excit­ing and haunt­ing. Their exu­ber­ance made me feel jaded and leaden. I’ve never felt as old as I did watch­ing Heath explore his tal­ents. That night I made him an offer—knowing he wouldn’t take me up on it—that he should feel free to come by the set when he had a night off so he could see what we were up to.

When you get into the edit suite after shoot­ing a movie, you feel a respon­si­bil­ity to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us every­thing. As we started my cut, I would won­der about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visu­al­ize the screen­ing where we’d have to show him the fin­ished film—sitting three or four rows behind him, watch­ing the move­ments of his head for clues to what he was think­ing about what we’d done with all that he’d given us. Now that screen­ing will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.

Back on LaSalle Street, I turn to my assis­tant direc­tor and I tell him to clear the skate­board­ing kid out of my line of sight when I realize—it’s Heath, woolly hat pulled low over his eyes, here on his night off to take me up on my offer. I can’t help but smile.

This is shock­ing and ter­ri­ble news, who knows what shall hap­pen to The Dark Knight now that he has died. All prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy has been com­pleted but this is a heart wrench­ing blow to all of us that had fallen in love with his por­trayal as The Joker. I per­son­ally can’t find the words to explain my feel­ings at this point, what a hor­ri­ble loss — an actor that seemed to be reach­ing his peak and had such great things ahead of him.

From the BBC,

Hol­ly­wood actor Heath Ledger has been found dead at a down­town Man­hat­tan res­i­dence, a New York Police Depart­ment spokesman has said.

“He was found uncon­scious at the apart­ment and pro­nounced dead,” a police spokes­woman said.

Police are inves­ti­gat­ing whether the Aus­tralian actor, who earned an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for 2005 film Broke­back Moun­tain, died of a drug overdose.

The 28-year-old was found dead in the SoHo flat at around 1530 (2030 GMT).

Police said they did not sus­pect foul play and that his body had been dis­cov­ered sur­rounded by pills.

From the Asso­ci­ated Press:

Heath Ledger was found dead Tues­day at a down­town Man­hat­tan res­i­dence, and police said drugs may have been a fac­tor. He was 28. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Ledger had an appoint­ment for a mas­sage at the Man­hat­tan apart­ment believed to be his home. The house­keeper who went to let him know the masseuse had arrived found him dead at 3:26 p.m.

A large crowd of paparazzi and gawk­ers began gath­er­ing Tues­day evening out­side the build­ing on an upscale block in SoHo, where sev­eral police offi­cers guarded the door.

Our thoughts go out to his friends and family.

The read­ers over at /film have sent in some very cool Dark Knight pro­mo­tional items — a beau­ti­ful Joker card set donned with the phrase “Why So Seri­ous”, the Bat­man logo and the film’s release date and a white t-shirt with a hideous Joker grin sprawled across it.

eta have been kind enough to send Bungie some of their real life Halo movie props. In this week’s update Bungie decided to share some pic­tures with us…

Remem­ber those delights we dis­cov­ered in the Bak­eries? — the attached cell phone, clues, joker cards, etc? Well that phone has become active again, send­ing out creepy texts from the Joker to his newly recruited gang of cake eaters. The brand spank­ing new Hol­ly­wood Chicago received this in the mail:

I have the cell phone and I just got a text mes­sage from the Joker today from humanresources@​whysoserious.​com. Here’s what it said:

“You still out there, clown? Reply and let me know.”

I replied “yes” and I got another response:

“See you found my lit­tle mes­sage. So do you think you have what it takes to be a part of my cir­cle of friends? Are you a back­stab­bing, self…”

Then the mes­sage gets cut off. Oth­ers I have talked to with the phone have said the same thing. I am sure this is an auto­mated response.

I replied back “yes” to the last text and I am wait­ing to see what hap­pens. I will keep you updated!

~ Vlkers54

 *fin­gers crossed*

Gotham Knight, aka the multi-part short story animé between Bat­man Begins and The Dark Knight, is expected to get a nov­el­iza­tion, so report The World’s Finest. With a planned release on April 29th, 2008.

I’m not sure if this is offi­cial or just some fans hav­ing a laugh, but I think it’s worth show­ing you guys any­way. This mon­stros­ity was spot­ted by Gianni V at the Edwards Ontario Palace in Ontario Cal­i­for­nia. Is this the first part of a new Dark Knight adver­tise­ment cam­paign? I per­son­ally doubt it.

First reported by our friends at /Film.

A pos­si­ble plot out­line for The Dark Knight has seem­ingly been leaked online, our email tells us this is from a reli­able source, but adds a dis­claimer that fake plots may be spread amongst the TDK team to put us off the scent.

There may be spoil­ers ahead, but that should go with­out say­ing. Head over to Bad­taste to read the pur­ported Dark Knight plot out­line, if you want to ruin the ending.