While Heath Ledger's untimely death came as a shock to the world, the alarm bells were sounding well before his tragic demise, during the filming of his last movie - "The Dark Knight".
An on-set source revealed that Ledger was advised to seek professional help for his personal problems, but relied on his character of the Joker to act as a mask to hide his internal traumas.
"Heath refused to talk to anyone out-of-character," the source said. "If you tried to communicate with him normally instead of the Joker, he would just ignore you.
"He would often come to the set to hang out even on his days off in character, freaking everyone out. Toward the end of filming, he was warned by people that he’d gone too far, but it was almost like he couldn't connect with those who cared for him anymore."
Ledgers fastidious commitment to the method acting approach, to literally 'become' the crazed Joker, saw him locked himself in his apartment for an entire month.
Another source on the set of "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", a film Ledger was in the process of working on when he died, said that Heath couldn't "snap out" of the character and "lost sense" of who he was.
"Heath couldn't be himself anymore and that terrified him," said the source.
“When you have people talking s—t about you all the time, of course it's hard to stay levelheaded and remember who you really are,” the insider said.
Speculation is also emerging that studio Warner Brothers may be considering cutting scenes from the new film showing Ledger's Joker in a body bag, after test audiences became distressed during a prescreening.
"It's highly likely that that will be modified," an insider said.