The award for best supporting actor went to the late Heath Ledger on Sunday at the 66th annual Golden Globe Awards.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. celebrated Ledger posthumously for his role as the psychotic Joker in “The Dark Knight.” The award came almost a year after Ledger’s death from an accidental overdose Jan. 22 in New York.

The film’s director, Christopher Nolan, accepted the award on behalf of Ledger, while those in the ballroom stood and applauded. “All of us who worked with Heath on ‘The Dark Night’ accept this with an awful mixture of sadness, but incredible pride.”

While Nolan said Ledger’s passing represented “a hole ripped in the history of cinema,” he also pointed to “the incredible place in the history of cinema that he built for himself.” Nolan ended his remarks by saying, “He will be eternally missed, but he will never be forgotten.”

Source [ HollyWoodReporter ]