Michelle Williams recently sat down with Vogue magazine to give her first interview about the death of her daughter Matilda’s father Heath Ledger. Here are just a few interesting quotes from the article:
On dealing with Heath’s death: “I have been severely accident-prone over the past twelve months. I fell downstairs, broke a toe, put my fingers in a blender—seriously distracted. [I would] cry, nap, sit and stare, try to figure out what to make [Matilda] for dinner, talk to friends on the phone. I was holding it together by a string and a paper clip in the fall and winter. I didn’t know if I could keep it all together.”
On friends who helped her grieve: “Friends never really left me alone… Women and kids really got us through the winter. One got me gardening in the spring, and that’s when it started to turn around. I think it’s something about being in nature that made it more possible. I remember being on my hands and knees. The ground was cold and muddy. I pushed back the dead leaves and saw the bright green shoots of spring. Under all this decay something was growing. Caring for the garden reminded me to care for myself.”
On getting through the death with Matilda: “You console yourself by saying it’s all a deepening process. But it’s weird. After the first year, the pain is less intense; it’s less immediate. But the magical thinking goes away, too. And that’s a whole new reckoning. But every time I really miss him and wonder where he’s gone, I just look at her.”
On talking to Matilda about the paparazzi: “[I tell her] ‘it’s because people really loved your daddy that they want to take your picture, to know you’re all right’. My reaction to it is going to be her reaction to it. It’s an OK model for her to see that her mom has boundaries. It’s OK for me to be upset and to raise my voice. But it’s an ongoing struggle. It’s hard to be the man and the woman in that [paparazzi] situation. Heath always used to do that for us.”
On breaking up with Spike Jonze: “The timing was impossible. I thought falling in love again was the only thing that was going to save me from the pain. This erroneous idea: it just makes things more complicated.”
On her current relationship with Matilda: “I’m falling more and more in love with her, and I think she deserves the bulk of my attention. We’re lucky. I can work. She can go to a good school. There’s a lot there for her. And she can know her dad in so many ways, and so many of his friends who will be able to tell her so many stories. His friends, his family—they were a big part of his life, and they will be a big part of her life.”
Michelle is now splitting her time between Brooklyn and update New York where she goes to get away with Matilda.
Read the full article here.
