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Sometimes the dark trickster is so in your face it leaves you nearly breathless.

Back in 2013, the news about the death of Paul Walker, 40, was all over Reddit and other sites.

Walker starred in the Fast and Furious franchise, the first of which was released in 2001.
Walker played an undercover detective in 5 of the 6 films about illegal street racing and heists. He died as a passenger in a friend’s Porsche while en route to a charity event to aid Filipino victims of the recent typhoon.  Apparently, the driver was speeding in an area known for racing and struck a streetlight. The car was demolished and engulfed in flames.
The first fire rescue team to get there pronounced both men dead within two minutes of arriving.

It’s easy to see the eerie similarities between Walker’s fictional life and the real life incident that ended his life. When these two worlds collide for actors, the defining event can be startling and deadly. Since actors essentially live the role they are playing,  even if for a short time, the stage is literally set for them to attract synchronicity through the dark trickster. While these occurrences are rare, when they do occur, they shock us and we might pause to wonder about the deeper mechanisms of reality. Here are some other tragic incidents involving actors that reflected their work:

Christopher Reeves. His last role before the horseback riding accident that paralyzed him was that of a paraplegic. A few hours after the first news conference about his accident, HBO aired—as previously scheduled—a film starring Reeve that had debuted only a week earlier: Above Suspicion. Reeve played a police officer who was paralyzed after being shot in the line of duty.

Brandon Lee. He died while filming a scene in his last movie, The Crow. In the scene, he discovers his girlfriend being raped by thugs who kill both of them. Funboy, one of the film’s villains, fired a gun at Brandon’s character as he walked into his apartment. The gun was loaded with blanks, but a dummy cartridge had lodged in the barrel and the detonation of a blank propelled it through the barrel, killing Brandon at point-blank range.

Bruce Lee. Eighteen years earlier, Brandon’s father died on the set of another movie, ironically called, The Death Game. Both Bruce and Brandon were playing characters who died and then returned to life. Both deaths were ruled accidental, though highly suspicious. The dark trickster was present at the end of both of their lives.

David Carradine. He played a deadly swordsman, the head of a family of assassins, in Quenten Taratino’s Kill Bill movies, and died in 2004 in a luxury hotel room in Bangkok during the filming Kill Bill Volume 2. He supposedly hung himself, but may have died accidentally in a dangerous sexual act.

Heath Ledger. The dark trickster also came to play in the death of Ledger. At age 28, he was already a legend, an Oscar nominee for his role in Brokeback Mountain. He had just completed filming his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight. The movie made box office history, Ledger was praised for his portrayal of the dark character and won an Oscar for his performance. Unfortunately, he died of an accidental overdose of prescription medication six months before the release of the movie. Ironically, Ledger played the role of the dark trickster himself.

Life imitating art: another version of dark trickster.