Lily Cole Talks Nude Photos, Playing Heath Ledger’s Love Interest In His Last Film

Posted by mija on Dec 15, 2009 in News | 0 comments

Not many supermodels have made graceful transitions from the runway to the big screen, but Lily Cole may prove an exception. The doll-faced redhead started walking in top shows all over the world at age 14, became the youngest model ever to cover British Vogue at age 16 and at 21 stars in Terry Gilliam’s new fantasy film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
“Over time I started to absorb what I was doing and who I was working with,” she told the Huffington Post about landing the role of the female lead, Valentina. “It was a really, really amazing team to have been asked to be a part of.”
That team included the famously trippy Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Brazil) and screen legend Christopher Plummer, who plays Cole’s 1,000-year-old magician father fighting to save her from the Devil–a delightfully sinister Tom Waits. And most famously, Heath Ledger, who played Cole’s love interest in his last big-screen appearance and died while they were shooting.
“There was this huge void,” said Cole. “There was this very energetic person and force that was there previously that was now gone. Everyone really, really loved him.”
Gilliam, determined to finish the project, brought the cast and crew back together about a month after Ledger’s untimely death and created a plot device that would allow shooting to continue: a magic mirror that changed the appearance of those who went behind it. Instead of playing opposite Ledger, Cole was filming scenes with Colin Farrell, Jude Law and Johnny Depp, who all stepped forward to try to finish the work their good friend had started.
Depp was the first one to sign on. “They were friends and it was really wonderful to see him come in and seamlessly pick up this character,” Cole said. She filmed more of her scenes with Farrell, who “had a really hard time because he’d lost a friend and he was grieving him and he had to try and embody him.”
The finished product is an ambitious, if patchwork, tribute to Ledger, and Cole said his friends have found it unsettling. She and others have had a difficult time watching him resurrected in a Dali-esque dream world.
“It’s such an emotional journey to have been part of, and to watch it condensed into two hours is very strange,” she said. “At the same time, I haven’t seen him in nearly two years now so it’s kind of nice to see him animated on screen how I remember him.”
source: huffingtonpost.com