Michelle Williams is grateful for her friendship with Jeremy Strong.
In an interview with Variety, Williams recalled how the “Succession” star moved in with her and daughter Matilda, then 2, shortly after Heath Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose 2008.
Though Williams and Ledger ended their 3-year relationship in 2007, the former couple remained parenting partners — and Matilda felt her dad’s absence.
“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, 41, revealed.
Williams also made a point to call out last year’s New Yorker profile of Strong. Director Aaron Sorkin previously slammed the piece as a “distorted picture of Jeremy,” and Williams, who has known Strong since 2004, appears to agree.
“It’s true that his clothes were always designer, but 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 recalled. “So he walked around with his beautiful things ruined and he never thought twice about it and he never told her to stop.”
“[Matilda] didn’t grow up with her father, but she grew up with her Jeremy and we were changed by his ability to play as though his life depended on it, because hers did,” Williams said.
Williams is currently pregnant and expecting her second child with her husband, Thomas Kail, this fall. She and the director, 44, also share son, Hart, who was born in 2020. Matilda is now 16.
“It’s totally joyous,” Williams told Variety. “As the years go on, you sort of wonder what they might hold for you or not hold for you. It’s exciting to discover that something you want again and again, is available one more time. That good fortune is not lost on me or my family.”
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