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Q: Did Heath Ledger do his own singing in "10 Things I Hate About You"? Did he have any other singing roles?

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

Just the one, and you have to go pretty far down in his resume to find it.

Before Australian heartthrob Heath Ledger found fame in the U.S. with the teen romcom "10 Things I Hate About You" in 1999, he starred in the short-lived fantasy-action series "Roar" in 1997. He actually sang twice as many songs in that one as he did in "10 Things," though that still only amounts to two songs.

He performed a couple of appropriately sad Irish-style ballads in "Roar," which isn't much, but it's still more than the single song he did in "10 Things," and people are still talking about that.

Ledger's "10 Things" co-star David Krumholtz wrote an essay for Vulture.com in 2015 about his experience on the set, and ended it with, "Who can ever forget Heath Ledger singing 'You're Just Too Good to Be True' with the backing of a high school marching band in the film's glorious climax? I certainly can't." (Note: "You're just too good to be true" is actually just one of the lines in the song; its title is actually "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You.") Us Weekly magazine called the scene "one of the film's biggest takeaways."

The strength of Ledger's performance was one of the things that helped make the movie into a late-'90s classic, and the role that put Ledger on the map.

"Roar," on the other hand, is mostly forgotten, having only aired for a single season on the Fox network. This is despite the fact that it co-starred a couple of other actors who would go on to serious fame. Vera Farmiga appeared in all 13 episodes with Ledger, nine years before she found fame as a conflicted police psychologist in the 2006 Oscar winner "The Departed." The show also featured two appearances by Keri Russell, just a year before her hit teen series "Felicity" debuted.

 

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