Few college students picture themselves dead in 10 years, which could partly explain why our generation is reacting so emotionally to the news of Heath Ledger’s death. The Oscar-nominated Australian actor was just 28 years old, making his death seem, at least to young people, almost too tragic to bear.

Although authorities have found no evidence of foul play, the questionable circumstances surrounding Ledger’s death have left us with an incomplete picture of how and why his life ended so suddenly. Ledger, who had been ill with pneumonia, was found naked, face-down on the bed of his Manhattan apartment. Sleeping pills and other prescription drugs were discovered nearby, but currently there is no indication that Ledger took his own life, and family members insist that he was not that kind of person.

However, he might have been depressed in recent months following his break-up with Michelle Williams, his former fiancée and mother of their two-year-old daughter, Matilda. Williams, Ledger’s co-star in 2005’s critically-acclaimed “Brokeback Mountain,” reportedly flew to New York when she heard news of his death.

Ledger received an Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for “Brokeback Mountain,” and that’s not all that Ledger accomplished in his brief but stellar acting career. Ledger began acting as a teenager, and people who knew him then are eager to extol the considerable talent he had even as an adolescent. He won 13 awards in a variety of cities, states and countries and was nominated for 28 more. Other well-known films in which he acted include “Ten Things I Hate About You,” “The Patriot,” “A Knight’s Tale,” “Casanova” and “Monster’s Ball.” Prior to his death, Ledger filmed “The Dark Knight,” which is due to be released later this year, and he was in the process of filming “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.”

Ledger also placed in Empire Magazine’s 100 Sexiest Movie Stars and similar contests and was once called “the new Matt Damon.” Since making it big as a stereotypical heartthrob, though, he tried to avoid being typecast in that image. Ledger was known for taking any and every kind of role, pursuing a reputation as a talented, versatile actor.

Perhaps the best way to capture the tragedy of Ledger’s death is in his own words. In Vanity Fair in August 2000, the actor was quoted as saying, “I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life...I don’t want to spend the rest of my youth doing this in this industry. There’s so much I want to discover.”