Magda Szubanski has revealed Heath Ledger personally pitched a role for himself on Kath and Kim after the pair’s hilarious award show encounter in her new memoir.
In her new autobiography I Can’t Tell You But I Will, Magda recalls the infamous moment with Heath at the Australian Film Institute awards in 2006.
Before the ceremony, Heath Ledger was being interviewed on the red carpet when a familiar shriek behind him made him jump.
It was Magda Szubanski as Sharon Strzlecki, screaming at the Australian actor, who then walked up to Sharon and pashed her, causing her to faint on the red carpet.
“We had decided that Sharon, who was in her role as assistant stage manager that night, would ambush Heath and go for the pash,” Magda writes in her new book.
“Heath knew nothing of our plan. But as soon as Sharon saw Heath, overtaken by my own avatar, she went off-script and screamed. Heath jumped out of his skin, composed himself, strode over, grabbed my face in his hands and planted one right on me. Then Sharon fainted. These are the ‘actionless’ moments actors live for.”
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Heath Ledger pitched a role with Sharon on Kath and Kim
In the 20 years since, clips of Magda and Heath’s awards ceremony bit have been viewed millions of times, with some overseas viewers left very confused by the kiss and what exactly is happening.
Magda shares in her new book, “What came next was even better: Heath rang me the following morning to tell me our red-carpet improv was the most fun he’d had in ages.
“And he wanted to float an idea: could he be a guest on Kath and Kim … as Sharon’s stalker! Mic drop. Heath and I had a few phone calls about it, and we were scheduled to meet in London when the tragic news came through that he’d died.”
Kath and Kim‘s final season screened in late 2007, and celebrities were lining up to cameo on the comedy series. Tragically, Heath Ledger died in New York in January 2008, aged 28.
“The loss of a superb human like Heath reverberates so deeply and widely it is impossible to express,” Magda wrote in her memoir. “It is one of the great ‘what ifs’ of my life. What if he hadn’t died, and we could have kept playing?
“The delight and hilarity that would have brought to us, and the world … it hurts to think about it.”
‘I decided to step forward — and up’
I Can’t Tell You But I Will is Szubanski’s second memoir, following 2015’s Reckoning, in which she chronicled her relationship with her father, Polish WWII soldier Zbigniew Szubanski.
Magda’s new book focuses on her journey “from daughter to orphan, and comedian to campaigner” during the last days of her mother, Margaret Szubanski, who died in 2017 at age 92.
In the book, Magda shares how her mother’s last days coincided with Magda’s advocacy as the public face of Australia’s marriage equality campaign the same year.
“By nature I am, like many in the arts, an ambivert: half show-off, half hermit,” Magda explained. “Apart from work, I was always very private. Coming out [in 2012] changed all that.
“In 2017, because of the same-sex marriage survey, I decided to step forward — and up.”
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Magda recalled at the time, she was figuring out her own belief system, determining what she was capable of, and “forging her social self in the heat of battles, both public and personal.”
“My mother was dying. Those of you who know what this means don’t need to be told,” she wrote. “The rest of you will find out… The death of one’s last parent, especially one’s mother, is a primal, visceral experience.”
Magda described the public commentary brought on by the marriage survey as “an ordeal by fire that few will ever experience.”
“Except of course our Indigenous brothers and sisters, some of whom have had to live through the indignity of this kind of vote twice,” she said.
Magda Szubanski opens up about ‘incurable’ cancer
Last weekend, Magda Szubanski gave an update on her battle with cancer in an interview on 60 Minutes.
She disclosed that while her stage-four mantle cell lymphoma is in “deep remission,” the condition is incurable and “almost sure that it will come back”.
“It’s a question of ‘when’ and then ‘how bad’,” she explained.
“The median survival rate is eight-and-a-half years… I could go less, or I could go more.”
Magda Szubanski’s book I Can’t Tell You But I Will is out on Tuesday (September 29).
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