Michelle Williams Reveals How Jeremy Strong Helped With Matilda After Heath Ledger’s Death: She ‘Didn’t Grow Up With Her Father’

usmagazine.com:

Stepping in and stepping up. Michelle Williams spoke candidly about daughter Matilda Ledger’s sweet relationship with actor Jeremy Strong — and how the Succession star was there for the young girl in the wake of Heath Ledger’s death.“[Matilda] didn’t grow up with her father but she grew up with her Jeremy,” the Dawson’s Creek alum, 41, told Variety in a cover story published on Tuesday, May 10.

Williams added that she and Matilda — who was 2 years old when the Dark Knight star died at age 28 of an accidental overdose in January 2008 — “were changed by [Strong’s] ability to play as though his life depended on it, because hers did.”The My Week With Marilyn actress explained, “Jeremy was serious enough to hold the weight of a child’s broken heart and sensitive enough to understand how to approach her through play and games and silliness.”Williams further noted that Strong’s clothes were ruined due to how much he would play with Matilda, now 16. (Per Variety, Strong, 43, was one of several friends and family members who came to live with the mother and daughter in New York City after Heath’s untimely death.)“He had only one sweater and two T-shirts and they were torn at the neck because he would play ponies with my daughter and let her ride on his back and use his clothing as reins,” she told the outlet, defending her friend from the criticism he received after a New Yorker profile mentioned his closet full of ripped designer clothing. (She also stood by his method acting choices.) “So he walked around with his beautiful things ruined and he never thought twice about it and he never told her to stop.”The Halloween H20 actress is currently expecting her third child, her second with husband Thomas Kail, whom she wed in March