Heath Ledger tragically passed away when his daughter, Matilda, was only two-years-old, but his memory lives on her.
In an interview with The Project Heath’s father, Kim, talked of how his nine-year-old granddaughter shares so many traits with her actor father.
“She’s got an enormous number of his mannerisms,” Kim gushed of his granddaughter.
“She’s very inquisitive, she’s got his energy… Heath never slept from when he was two and Matilda’s like that.
“I mean she’s just got this ball of energy and she radiates this little aura, Heath was kind of like that. So it’s fabulous really.”
Kim had nothing but praise for Matilda’s mother, actress Michelle Williams, describing her as “brilliant”.
“She’s kept Heath very much alive in her daughter’s eyes,” he told the show’s panel.
Understandably Matilda grows more and more curious of her late father.
“[Matilda’s] always full of questions, always wanting to know this or that about her dad,” Kim said. “And I guess that will just get more intense as she gets older and obviously we would welcome that.”
Kim keeps in regular contact with Matilda through Skype and visits her in the US where she lives, but hopes when she is old enough, she’ll visit her dad’s hometown.
Since his son’s tragic passing, Kim has become a crusader, honouring Heath’s legacy by starting a not-for-profit organization, called ScriptWise.
The organization is dedicated to educating people about the dangers of abusing prescription drugs, which ultimately took the life of his talented son.
“I think it’s lack of education, at the end of the day I guess there’s a feeling out there that if the doctor prescribes it, it’s okay,” Kim explained to The Project panel.
“In Heath’s particular case, he was having to travel a lot between Vancouver, London, New York – all within the space of a short time. He was also suffering a bad chest infection and he couldn’t sleep as a result of that.
“I made this organization because I was approached by families that were in the same situation that we were, that we found ourselves in accidentally.”
