Heath Ledger's family is thrilled that the late actor won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for his work as the joker in "The Dark Knight."

"We are overjoyed for him," the actor's father, Kim Ledger, told People from his home in Australia. Ledger couldn't make it to the ceremony, citing personal reasons for missing his late son's win. He said "it's wonderful" that Heath was honored for his role in the action flick.

Ledger was up against veteran actors like Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr., Ralph Fiennes and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Accepting the award for Ledger — who died last January of an accidental overdose of prescription medication in his home in New York City — was the film's director, Christopher Nolan, who said that Ledger "will never be forgotten."

"After Heath passed on, you saw a hole ripped in the future of cinema — but with the extraordinary response to his work that we've seen all over the world, I, for one, start to be able to look a bit less at that gap in the future and a little bit more at the incredible place in the history of cinema that he built for himself with his talent and with his dedication to his artistry," the director told the crowd.

"For any of us lucky enough to work with him, I think for any of us lucky enough to have enjoyed his performances, he will be eternally missed. But he will never be forgotten."

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