Magda Szubanski has revealed in her new memoir that Heath Ledger asked to play Sharon Strzelecki's stalker on Kath and Kim after their improvised kiss at the 2006 Australian Film Institute awards. The book, I Can’t Tell You But I Will, is out Tuesday.
An improvised moment
At the 2006 awards, Ledger was being interviewed by a TV journalist when Szubanski, in character as Sharon, screamed at the sight of him. Ledger kissed her passionately, and Szubanski pretended to faint. Footage of the moment has been viewed millions of times online, with some commenters criticising Ledger for kissing a woman they believed was a regular fan.
Szubanski writes that the plan was for Sharon, as assistant stage manager, to ambush Ledger, but he knew nothing of it. When Sharon saw him, she went off-script and screamed. Ledger composed himself, grabbed her face and kissed her, then Sharon fainted. Szubanski describes these as the “actionless” moments actors live for.
The phone call
The following morning, Ledger rang Szubanski to say the red-carpet improv was the most fun he’d had in ages. He floated the idea of being a guest on Kath and Kim as Sharon’s stalker. They had a few phone calls and were scheduled to meet in London when news of his death came through. Ledger died in New York in 2008, aged 28, from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.
Szubanski writes that the loss of a superb human like Ledger reverberates so deeply and widely it is impossible to express, and calls it one of the great “what ifs” of her life.
Second memoir
I Can’t Tell You But I Will is Szubanski’s second memoir, following Reckoning in 2016. The new book focuses on the last days of her mother, Margaret Szubanski, who died in 2017 at 92. It includes her discovery that her mother was raped at age eight, and her realisation during therapy that she had been groomed by children, experiences she believes “ruined” her.
The memoir also covers Szubanski’s work on the 2017 marriage equality vote. She describes the public commentary as “an ordeal by fire” and reflects on lessons from Poland about mass psychology. It briefly touches on her cancer diagnosis last year; she has said she is in remission from stage-four mantle cell lymphoma, but it is “incurable” and likely to return.
