Rose Byrne Discusses How Late Actor Heath Ledger Helped Her And Many Other Australian Actors Land Roles In America

It is always wonderful when an actor recognizes someone important who helped them get to the heights they have achieved. Australian actress Rose Byrne took time during a recent interview with The Independent to honor her friend and fellow Aussie, late actor Heath Ledger. 

Bryne told the publication about how if it wasn't for Ledger, she and many other actors might not have had the opportunities afforded to them, because they were relatively unknown stateside. 

"It was a whole mix of us: actors who got work, actors who didn't. Being Australian, you're outsiders, aliens, so you've got to band together. Heath was a real champion of that. He left early and started to get work here. He was so instrumental in helping me and a lot of people get work, and get into rooms."

The pair, who had co-starred together in the film Two Hands in 1999, waxed nostalgic about the early days of their careers and the optimism Heath Ledger brought to the community of actors they were apart of at the time,

"Just all of us driving to Joshua Tree, or staying at Heath's [house] in Los Feliz. We were all in our late teens or early twenties, and there was such fervor to it all."

Ledger had starred alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood before his tragic death in 2008. Best known for one of his final roles as The Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, for which he won a posthumous Oscar, Ledger worked with Christopher Plummer, Matt Damon, Ang Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, Christian Bale, and Geoffrey Rush, just to name a few.

His legacy in Hollywood will surely be felt for decades to come.