Ledger, 28 when he died, was not just an actor to Gilliam, he was the finest actor of his generation. They had worked together on The Brothers Grimm, where he had also been impressed by Ledger's sweetness of character and his skill at chess. "It just isn't possible that he's dead," he says. "There's nothing he can't do, it just flows out of him with ease and grace. He lifted everybody. He wasn't like Marlon Brando or James Dean or any of the more neurotic actors, his was all positive energy. I knew he was tired but that Saturday he had been doing all his own stunts, he was leaping off wagons, indestructible. On no level did his death make sense."