Maggie Gyllenhaal is playing Katie Holmes’ old character on the latest Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, which is filming now. Hair-challenged Heath Ledger (not that there’s anything wrong with that, shave it off though and work The Bruce instead of The Donald) is playing villian Joker, but he was a hero on set when he saved Maggie when her clothes accidentally caught fire.

There were pyrotechnics as part of a scene they were filming, and the machine creating the fire fell over and Maggie’s skirt caught on fire. Heath jumped on top of her to put out the fire. This story sounds somewhat plausible except for the ending, which is cheesy to say the least:

Heath Ledger… jumped in to save the day when co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal’s clothes caught fire on the set of the Batman sequel, “The Dark Knight!” The scary accident occurred during a scene where The Joker confronts Maggie’s dishy district attorney character – and a pyrotechnics display suddenly explodes behind him, sending fireworks rocketing high into the air. Instead, the special effects generator toppled over – and balls of flame jetted at Maggie, who screamed as sparks set her skirt ablaze!

Quicker than you can say: “Holy fireworks, Batmant,” Heath threw himself on top of Maggie and pushed her down, smothering the flames with his body. Crewmembers raced to the rescue, but Heath was already helping shaken Maggie up, checking her charred skirt for stray sparks. “I’m fine,” she reassured everyone – then thanked Heath with a peck on the cheek. Snarked the macho star: “I got a better kiss from your brother!”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker’s column, August 27, 2007]

There seems to be a hero story every week in that guy Mike Walker’s column in The Enquirer, so I’m not entirely convinced this is true. There are two famous people involved and it happened on a crowded set, so it seems more likely in that it’s a verifiable incident.

If so, it’s a damn good story, especially with the bit about Heath telling Maggie that her brother was a better kisser! That’s priceless.

Maggie Gyllenhaal has said that she’s going to play Holmes’ former character as herself and that ““I’m not walking into Katie Holmes’ performance. I’m thinking of it as an opportunity to play somebody who’s alive and smart. Chris (Nolan the director) asked me to do this because he wanted me, not because he wants some generic lady in a dress.” It sounds like a dig at Katie Holmes to me. I wonder what would have happened if her skirt caught on fire. One of her Scientology minders would have probably been there with a hose and then given her some vitamins to cure the burn.