Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona.

In honor of what would've been Heath Ledger's 40th birthday, I want to take a look back at my favorite role of his. In a modernized version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, Heath Ledger plays the modernized Petruchio. His character takes the name of Patrick Verona in the iconic teen film 10 Things I Hate About You.

Patrick is the bad boy who is in charge of wrangling loose cannon Kat (Julia Stiles). Patrick is involved in a big scheme where he's paid to take her out, so that Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) can take out Kat's younger sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). As these things go, Patrick starts to have feelings for Kat and feels guilty about taking the money. It's a typical plot line filled with tropes and stereotypes, but you can't help loving it.

Heath Ledger absolutely steals the show in this. I don't know one girl who didn't wish they could date him. He breathes so much life into the character and makes it his own as opposed to showing us more of what we've already seen with these plot lines before. If you haven't seen the movie there's a good chance you've seen at least one scene from it. There's two in particular that seem to circle the internet every so often. The most famous scene from the movie is obviously the "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" cover sung by Heath. It's him running around the "bleachers" during Kat's soccer practice trying to win her back. Everyone knows this scene it is truly iconic and something I see over and over again. The second is one of the last scenes in the movie, when Kat is reading her own version of Shakespeare's sonnet. She's crying and reading off her "10 Things I Hate About You" sonnet to Patrick in front of the whole class. The most recognizable stanza is the last,

"But mostly I hate the way

I don't hate you; Not even close; Not even a little bit; Not even at all."

This sonnet loves to make its way through twitter every other month and I can't blame them. This is a classic among my generation for sure and adds another layer to Heath Ledger. Every time I see this movie playing on TV, which is a lot, I stop and watch it. It's just one of those guilty pleasure movies. Maybe it's not Heath's best role, but it certainly should not be looked over.

What are your thoughts on the movie? Leave a comment below!