heath ledger was a great actor to begin with. before batman he was not popular with batman fans because he was in a lot of teen type movies and was a gay cowboy, but he was already respected by movie critics. while people probably were more interested because of his death, he definitely would have gotten props regardless. not many people cared about his other movie that came out after he died, so that probably wasn't entirely the reason.
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I'm "kind of a big deal".
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