Michelle Williams reflects on ‘special’ Heath Ledger and their daughter

Michelle Williams is keeping the legacy of Heath Ledger alive with the help of their 19-year-old daughter, Matilda Ledger.

During Monday’s episode of the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, the Dying for Sex star made a rare comment about her relationship with her former partner, who died in 2008, several months after he and Williams split.

Shepard reflected on his own experiences with Ledger, whom he shared he got to know when The Dark Knight star was “getting sober.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever fallen in love with somebody so quickly,” Shepard 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.”

Seemingly emotional at the praise for her late partner, Williams whispered, “So special, so special, thank god there’s Matilda.”

Shepard likened Ledger to “this heart here that’s just leaking out everywhere,” to which Williams agreed, adding that Ledger had “an incredible sensitivity.”

Williams and Ledger met while working on the critically acclaimed, Ang Lee-directed gay cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain, and welcomed their daughter in October 2005 while promoting the film.

“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 time. “So you’re really just going with the flow.” 

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Williams, who also shares three children with her partner Thomas Kail, went on to call her children “great life checkers,” noting how her family has made her prioritize balancing home and her career. 

“[Kids] 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,” she noted.”

The Dawson’s Creek star voiced a similar sentiment when speaking to Entertainment Weekly about her role as Mitzi in Steven Spielberg’s movie memoir The Fabelmans. Williams served as the film’s heart, playing the filmmaker’s late mother, a vibrant midcentury housewife who has sublimated her dreams to raise a family. 

“It’s amazing because we all do it. That’s how every human gets here is a woman giving of herself. [Babies] have to arrive, and they have to be sustained, all of it. So I’m continuously searching, because balance isn’t a stable place. Balance means that you’re always adjusting,” Williams told EW at the time.

She added, “So you have to figure it out because we have to stay in the workforce, even though it often feels like it’s untenable. My heart obviously belongs to my children; they tug at it the most. But I really want to be able to have both. And I think that it requires deep thought and learning and the support of other women to figure out how to get through it.”