Director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento, Insomnia) spoke to Wizard Entertainment about Heath Ledger’s take on The Joker and some other rumors surrounding THE DARK KNIGHT. It’s a very cool article, when asked about why he chose Heath Ledger to play the iconic charismatic villain, here’s what he had to say about it.
I was looking for someone who was fearless. knew that I needed a fantastic actor, but I also knew that I needed someone who wasn’t going to worry about comparisons to any other actors who had played the role. I met with Heath before we even actually had a script. We talked about ideas for who the character would be in this movie as opposed to his previous appearances in movies, and we both saw it in the same way.
He’s just an incredible, incredible actor, and if you see “
It’s a good thing Heather didn’t bring his Brokeback persona along as an inspiration for his Joker portrayal cause that would be awkward if we saw The Joker and Two-Face started making out and stuff.
I do like how THE DARK KNIGHT has made the Joker looks nothing like Jack Nicholson’s The Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman, Heath Ledger’s version is more menacing, more evil, has a scarred look and a voice that’s scary in an awesome kind of way, a man whose laughter you wouldn’t wanna hear a mile away.
We want to create a villain who, as colorful and eccentric as he is, it’s still coming from a place of psychological reality. It’s coming from a recognizable, everyday reality. So the notion of the Joker as the most extreme form of anarchist, the most frightening form of anarchic, chaotic presence in
He’s [Heath] just got an incredible range to the voice and the way in which he uses it. It goes from being quite high-pitched and eccentric to having these sort of moments of extraordinary anger and power where you just feel this guy’s anger at things. He’s very charismatic, but really quite frightening.
I’m sure we can all agree that Christopher Nolan has brought Batman franchise to a whole new and better level, so when asked by Wizard if this was gonna be his last Batman project, he said…
I never thought that I would do a second “Batman” film. Let me put it that way. I had no thought of doing a second one when I was doing the first one, but obviously you never say, “Never.” Every film I’m working on, however, to me is generally the last film I’m ever going to make. That’s my approach to making film. It’s one of the reasons actually that I’m not comfortable putting footage out or early trailers because I’m engaged in making one thing at a time. I’m very single-minded and very focused on the task at hand and I do focus on just this movie. I really don’t have anything in my head about what’s next or doing another one or whatever.
And thank you, Mr. Nolan for releasing a bit of THE DARK KNIGHT every now and then, ever so often.
I sure hope Director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter, brother Jonathan Nolan still make the third Batman film because to be done now in this early stage would be like Tim Burton letting Joel Schumacher ruin Batman movies all over again.
Like I said, the interview article is pretty cool, to read the whole thing just click on this friendly image below
