I haven't been this profoundly upset about a celebrity death since 2pac

It was one of those steamy August dog days. We watched every puddle from the previous night's rain evaporate. There must have been a thousand of us -- passionate aspiring actors shared the evenly split demographic with fanboys -- but the funny thing was none of us wanted to be there anymore. The casting director was a real Nazi. A real bitch. She made sure we knew that even though we were all extras on the set of the new Batman movie, that it didn't mean shit. We were still at the bottom of the pyramid, the paramecium in the cinematic pond. Bother any of the actors and the price is your head, was what she pretty much told us. That was how things were. We could only stand in our positions, keep our mouths shut, and watch puddles shrink.

And then, right when I told the guy next to me I was leaving early, we heard the hot rumor. Heath Ledger was somewhere on set, in full Joker garb.

I was completely honest with everyone. I wasn't a fan. "Yo, seriously, he can't top the Nicholson performance," is what I said. "They should have casted Johnny Depp instead."

Arguments and name-calling erupted. The kind of stuff you'd expect from passionate aspiring actors and geeky fanboys. The kind of commotion you'd find at a professional boxing weigh-in and press conference, minus the biceps. I turned to leave, but then a guy dressed as a mutilated police officer told us to shut up.

"Look at this scar," he said, tracing his finger along the crude, smile-shaped gash on his face that extended from both corners of his mouth. "This is what The Joker does to me in the movie."

Everyone gasped. The guy crossed his arms and shook his head. "Very cool, I know. And as for Heath... All I can say about him is 'wow.' That guy is going to win an Oscar for this. I worked with him last night, and he was a man possessed. He was the most terrifying, creepy, bizarre thing I'd ever seen."

Everyone leaned in closer to listen. The maimed "police officer", he stared off into the distance and almost shuddered. He went on to talk about the voice, the posture. He described how nimble Heath was on his feet. How psychotic his eyes appeared. How impossible it was to look away.

"This is going to go down as the greatest villain performance since Hannibal Lecter," he said.

I decided to stay the rest of the day.

I never did get a chance to catch Heath Ledger that afternoon. Supposedly he was in his trailer most of the time. But the childlike giddiness that enveloped all of us who'd heard about his performance, it was a lot of fun. It made us feel like anything was possible. That's what someone with a special talent can do to people.

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CNN's got some cooler stories about Heath Ledger from people who had actually met him. Read them here.