Michelle Williams opted out of starring in a movie inspired by the death of her late ex-fiance Heath Ledger

Bradley Rust Gray, The film's director and friend of Heath told Entertainment Weekly: "When we were getting ready to shoot the film, she realised it was all a little too close for her still, and she politely bowed out."

Michelle was to play Chloe - who travels to Japan after her husband passes away and reconnects with an old friend and the idea of falling in love again - and 'Blade Runner 2049' star Carla Juri took her place.

Bradley added that he and Michelle both "shared the weight" of Heath's death.

He said: "We both shared this weight, of death, and the feeling that you always carry that weight when somebody close to you dies."

The movie - which is about their battle with grief - has already won the Special Jury Award for Uncompromising Artistic Vision at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

The Academy Award winner met Heath - who she split from in 2007 - while they were working opposite each other on the 2005 Ang Lee movie 'Brokeback Mountain', and Michelle previously spoke of how the loss "changed her" in 2011.

She said: "Now, my life, our life, has a kind of repaired itself.

[Ledger's death has] changed how I see the world and how I interact on a daily basis. It's changed the parent I am. It's changed the friend I am.

It's changed the kind of work that I really want to do. It's become the lens through which I see life - that it's all impermanent."

The movie star has since married Thomas Kail - who is best known for directing the Broadway smash-hit 'Hamilton' - and the pair welcomed a child into the world in 2020.