Michael Caine shares moment that 'still makes him sad to think about' in aftermath of Heath Ledger's death

Michael Caine has opened up about a moment that 'still makes him sad to think about' in the aftermath of Heath Ledger's death in 2008.

The late actor made us all root for the bad guys in movies after his iconic performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

Ledger sadly died at the age of 28 after accidentally overdosing on prescription painkillers while The Dark Knight was in the final stages of production, on 22 January 2008. He posthumously won an Oscar for the Best Supporting Actor the following year.

Caine, now 92, starred as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) loyal butler, in the Christopher Nolan trilogy, which ended in 2012 with The Dark Knight Rises.

The Italian Job actor wrote about Ledger's performance in his recently published memoir, Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over: My Guide to Life.

"Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action – I was terrified," he admitted.

"We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for The Dark Knight that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death.

"It still makes me sad to think of it… [it’s] a performance for the ages.

"Even though his career was cut short so soon, he’ll be remembered as a great actor, I believe.

"You think of what he might have gone on to achieve, it’s just heartbreaking."

Well it seems Ledger predicted the film's success, according to Andrew Garfield.

The Amazing Spider-Man star said he had a brief interaction with Ledger shortly after he finished filming The Dark Knight.

The pair spent a short time working together on 2009’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

In an interview on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, he recalled: “He was so smug about it.

“I was like, ‘How did that go?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s really good.’”

Ledger posthumously won an Oscar for his role in The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.)

Garfield added: “I remember his like, Empire magazine cover came out and he was like, 'Oh, they used a f**king s**t photo'.

“And I was like, 'Are you kidding me, dude that looks f**king incredible'.

“And he was like, 'Nah, the pose is all wrong, it looks kinda like a conventional version of what an actor…you’ll see'. And yeah, I did see.”

The Social Network star also recalled the time the Joker star once gave him a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, because he complimented them.

"He was just a very generous, beautiful, creative spirit,” he said. “He was a kind of beacon, it was like a wild animal.

"He was so free and so wild and so, kind of dangerous on set in a way that was the kind of thing that is inspiring and spontaneous.

"He would say before every take, or one take every scene, ‘Let’s have some fun with this one'."