Gabrielle Marcoux remembers the funny green glasses Heath Ledger wore while they sat in a car between takes.

The seven-year-old Ottawa girl, who co-starred opposite the Australian actor in the Bob Dylan bio I'm Not There, thought the 28-year-old star was "really funny and nice" as he joked around with the neophyte actress during shooting in Montreal in September 2006.

"We had this scene in a car and he had these green glasses on him and he said to me 'I'm from the Green Beans Movie,' " Gabrielle said yesterday, less than an hour after learning her co-star had died.

"I am surprised and sad," said Gabrielle of learning about Ledger's death from her mother.

The young actress played Dylan's young daughter Molly opposite Ledger, who was one of seven actors portraying the legendary folk singer.

Gabrielle's mother, Rosetta Pantusa-Marcoux, said she sat her daughter down and explained that Ledger had died.

"She wanted to know how and why and if his little girl was with him," said Pantusa-Marcoux.

Ledger had told Richard, Gabrielle's father, about his then 10-month-old daughter Matilda during the two-week shoot in Montreal.

"To a child, he could be really comical and he could really make her laugh," recalls Pantusa-Marcoux of Ledger's easygoing way with her daughter, a Grade 2 student at Jean-Robert Gauthier Elementary School in Barrhaven.

"There was one scene where he picked her up on his shoulders for a piggyback and she just loved that," added Pantusa-Marcoux.

"She was partial to him and him to her, too."


More Artists