Interviews
The Dark Knight: Heath Ledger on Playing The Joker
Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 26, 2008
“Yeah, it’s the most fun I’ve had, playing a role.” said the late Heath Ledger in an interview with FHM Online while the actor was on location in Chicago during the filming of The Dark Knight in 2007.
So much for the speculation that playing the dark, twisted Joker was too disturbing for the actor. In this interview there’s a real sense of joy about the work that went into the creation of the character. He really enjoyed making the film, creating the character and conquering the challenges of working in a big budget action film.
The actor spent a great deal of time searching for the physical and psychological attributes of the Joker:
“Like I sat around a hotel room in London, for about a month and I just locked myself away and formed a little diary and experimented with voices and I’ll answer your question (laughs), he’s you know I ended up making him within the realm of a psychopath kind of like zero empathy or very little to no conscience towards his acts which is fun because there’s no real limits on their boundaries to what he would say or how he would say something or what he would do.”
His take on the relationship between the Joker and his nemesis Batman is interesting:
“Yeah. They can’t really live without each other. It’s that kind of relationship. You know? Like they have no real purpose in life without each other. So they don’t really want each other dead.”
Ledger found a specific walk for the Joker, a kind of hunched over stance that he felt fit the character. It appears that playing the crazy, out of control Joker was a liberating experience for him, an opportunity to push the edge of the envelope as an actor.
His admiration for Christian Bale is evident and he was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Gary Oldman. Both he and Bale took their comic book characters seriously, working hard to bring them to life. It can’t be easy wearing the Batman costume and it has to be difficult acting opposite it as well.
The interview is a poignant reminder of the creative force that was extinguished when Heath Ledger died.
The Dark Knight opens July 18.
Read more articles by Robin Ruinsky
One Comment
June 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I thought it was a terrific interview. I wish the FHM writer or editor had actually put some punctuation in the article though! There are so many run-ons that it makes Heath Ledger sound like an idiot, which he was always far away from being.