On a day when I thought I’d be blogging about the Oscar nominations, what I really want to say is this: Heath Ledger was a hell of an actor, and it pisses me off that he’s dead. The cops report that there were sleeping pills by the bed. He was only 28 years old.

In 2006 I did a phone interview with Ledger about a film called “Candy” in which he played a charming heroin addict. In a soft voice, Ledger mentioned that he had visited some clinics and met some junkies to research the role. I don’t know if he was being coy and had a drug habit when he made the movie; but I do know that what I always saw in his performances was dedicated artistry. I told him that he should have won an Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain,” which I still believe, and that he kicked the ass of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won the ward for “Capote.” Ledger told me that was a very sweet thing to say but he didn’t agree.

I was thinking about that moment this morning, before anyone knew that Ledger had died, when this year’s Oscar nominations were announced and his name wasn’t among them. As one of the Bob Dylans in “I’m Not There,” Ledger wasn’t as astonishing as co-star Cate Blanchett (whose impersonation was even more stunning than Hoffman’s take on Truman Capote, which is why she’ll win an Oscar). But Ledger’s performance was true and human and complex. He was playing a facet of Dylan that other characters likened to James Dean–who also died way too young and to whom Ledger will now inevitably be compared.

As with Dean and “Rebel Without a Cause,” Ledger’s biggest success may be a film that’s released after his death: “The Dark Knight,” this summer’s Batman movie in which he plays the Joker. He’s scary good in the trailer, and the movie is likely to earn about a billion dollars, far more money (if not more social impact) than the groundbreaking gay love story “Brokeback Mountain.” Starting today, as the Oscar nominees express their feelings about a tragic loss on what should have been their happy day, and continuing through July, when the makers of “The Dark Knight” will have to filter their promotional enthusiasm through lingering grief, people will be talking a lot about Heath Ledger.

Some, like a publicist I know who worked with him at a film festival, will whisper that Ledger was an egotistical hot-shot who complained when his latte came with whipped cream. Others, like a friend of mine whom he flew to Venice to keep him company while he was filming “Casanova,” will say that he was a generous, affable Aussie who loved Matilda, his two-year-old daughter with former fiancee Michelle Williams.

I don’t know what’s true. I only saw him once, for a moment, in a lobby of a hotel in Toronto. He was wearing his shades in the daytime, as if to keep the rest of us out. But so did James Dean, and we’re still talking about him more than 50 years later.