One of the greatest triumphs and tragedies of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance as the Joker. While Ledger’s untimely death made the performance one of his final screen roles, there was never any denying that Ledger was an actor of the highest caliber, and where his career could have taken him is something that was sadly never to be known. Christian Bale recently reminisced about working with Ledger on the movie, telling GQ:
“Heath Ledger, oh my God, what a performance. What a pleasure to have gotten to work with him, and just to see him and how much he put himself into the Joker. And I was watching him going, ‘Yeah, this is absolutely fantastic. Are we in trouble here?’ When Chris [Nolan] and I first sat down, we said, the problem with Batman is that the villains are always more interesting, right? And so Batman, actually, he’s very close to being a villain himself. So, let’s never let him become dull by comparison, and unfortunately I was sitting there going, ‘I feel a little bit dull by comparison because Heath is just killing this.’ But I’m so proud of that film, I love it, The Dark Knight is absolutely extraordinary, and it was such a pleasure to have gotten to work with Heath.”
Related: Heath Ledger’s Joker Remains the Best Batman Villain, and Here’s Why
Heath Ledger is One of Several Stars to Make the Joker His Own
There are certain characters that can be played on screen by one actor, and that role becomes ruined for anyone else attempting to take it over. This has been true of many movie villains such as Freddy Krueger, but when it comes to the Joker, there has never been one particular actor who has defined the role, something proved by Ledger and subsequently by Joaquin Phoenix.
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When Jack Nicholson became the first person to play Joker in 1989’s Batman, his over-the-top comic book style seemed to be the perfect embodiment of the Clown Prince of Crime. That saw a huge wave of negativity from fans when it was announced that Heath Ledger would be taking on the role in the second movie of Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, but those naysayers were quickly silenced as Ledger set out his stall in the opening of The Dark Knight. With a more grounded approach to the character, who came with a malevolent glee that just worked so well in the grittier, dirtier version of Gotham, Ledger brought a reality to the character that had been absent from Tim Burton’s iteration with Nicholson.
Now, of course, there are ever more new Jokers to be considered. Jared Leto’s Suicide Squad Joker was given a bad rap and could have been different, as was briefly seen in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Joaquin Phoenix brought a completely real-world iteration to screen in the $1 billion movie Joker, which is now getting a sequel that will see Phoenix be the first actor to lead two Joker roles, and of course, Barry Keoghan is expected to be seen as the Joker in the sequel to the Robert Pattinson-led The Batman.
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