I have watched Michelle Williams’ new series Dying for Sex three times all the way through, now. It’s just so good, and with each viewing I become more impressed with everything the showrunners and cast put into it. I’m not finding it now, but when the show first came out in early April I saw someone online say, “I think I just watched Michelle Williams win another Emmy.” I think so too! (Though Cristin Milioti’s Penguin performance will be in the same category, and that’s strong competition.) Whether it’s an early Emmy campaign hustle or not, Michelle is still out doing press for the show. She was the guest on Monday’s episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, and about 40 minutes in, Dax recalls his own brief moments with Heath Ledger, saying “I thought he was just so special.” Michelle concurred, and added “thank god there’s Matilda.”
“I feel obligated to say that I knew him a little bit when he was getting sober, and I don’t know that I’ve ever fallen in love with somebody so quickly,” the presenter said of the actor. “This is one of the most special boys I’ve ever met, and I can feel the weight of the world on him in a very special way that kind of broke my heart. I was very, very sad, and I thought he was just so special.”
Audibly emotional, Williams replied, “So special, so special, thank god there’s Matilda.”
Shepard described Ledger as “this heart here that’s just leaking out everywhere,” to which Williams replied, “Yeah, an incredible sensitivity.”
Williams and Ledger welcomed their daughter Matilda in October 2005 while publicizing their Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain. The pair met on the set of the Ang Lee film and fell for each other immediately.
“We had a baby. But I suppose maybe it’s a good thing about being young is that you don’t have so much life experience that you can contextualize things,” Williams said of that period. “So you’re really just going with the flow.”
The Dawson’s Creek alum, who also shares three children with her partner Tommy Kail, discussed her approach to balancing children and her career.
“Kids are such great life checkers,” she mused. “They force you to put your best self in front of them. You can’t abdicate your life and your work and your own desires, but you do have to put them in check and figure out which master you’re going to serve.”
Williams went on to note that she doesn’t believe you can have it all in work and parenthood, all of the time.
“You can’t be equally good at [everything] at the exact same time, and you have to allow for that give and take, but then replenish the other things,” she explained.
“If you have a big period of being at home, you need to go back to what you’ve left unattended and put some light over there. So I think it’s just this constant back and forth, but making sure that you don’t leave one of them unattended for too long,” she concluded.
Losing Heath Ledger was a tough one. I remember it vividly; I was newly relocated to NYC for school, went into a four hour class and when I came out, the news had broken that he was gone. Even without knowing him personally, I felt like I could see that special spirit and sensitivity Dax describes, just radiating out of Heath. My mother always describes people with that kind of presence as “pixelated” (I don’t know where she picked it up and am fairly certain she’s not using it in a traditional/established way, but I’ve taken up the usage out of my affection for her). And I could be way off the mark, here, but ever since we learned that Michelle’s oldest son with now-husband Tommy Kail is named Hart, I’ve always wondered the following: Kail is Jewish, where it’s customary to name babies after deceased loved ones by using the same first letter of the name (as opposed to the same exact name). So, is Hart for Heath? I’m sure we the public will never get that private answer, but I’d like to think so.
Photo note by CB: Top image is from the 2006 BAFTA Awards credit: Marc Larkin/Avalon. Photo of Michelle and Heath out with baby Matilda is from May, 2006 credit: PacificCoastNews.com/Avalon. Other event photos from 2006 and credit: Jacqui Wong/Avalon, Christina Radish/Avalon. Photos of Michelle and Thomas Kail credit: Tatiana/Backgrid, MediaPunch/INSTARimages,
