Jake Gyllenhaal on Friend Heath Ledger's Death: 'I Can't Put Into Words' How It Affected Me

The actor opens up about his friend's death.

Jake Gyllenhaal is opening up about the death of his friend, actor Heath Ledger, saying it still affects him deeply.

"Personally, it affected me in ways I can't necessarily put in words or even would want to talk about publicly," Gyllenhaal told People magazine in a recent interview.

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Ledger died of a prescription drug overdose.

Gyllenhaal and Ledger co-starred in the 2005 film, Brokeback Mountain. "In terms of professionally, I think I was at an age where mortality was not always clear to me,” Gyllenhaal revealed.

“I think it [gave me] the experience of, ‘This is fleeting.’ And none of the attention or synthesized love that comes from the success of a film really matters at all,” Gyllenhaal said.

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“What matters is the relationships you make when you make a film, and the people you learn from when you’re preparing for a film. That changed a lot for me.”

Of making the film, he said. "We were super young.”

“We had no idea what the movie was going to become."

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