Heath Ledger’s Joker is considered as one of the greatest movie villain performances of all time. While Ledger was considered as a great actor before his work in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, he really became an all-time great after the film was released. It is a pity that Ledger died months before the film hit theaters and could not witness his performance on the big screen. Heath died on January 22, 2018, that is 10 years ago, and on the occasion, Christopher Nolan reflected on the actor’s Oscar-winning performance and how Heath improvised many of his scenes.
“He would sort of give me hints about what he was going to do. We would talk about it a bit. And I would try and be an audience for him and sort of engage with him, what he was doing. But a lot of it was about unpredictability, and I think he wanted to play his cards close to the chest. He would very gradually reveal to me the ‘voice’ and the way he was going to do things – but not in one go, like, ‘Here’s the Joker’,” Nolan told BBC Radio 1.
He continued, “We watched him sort of develop it, with the wardrobe and the makeup, and I kind of got to be a part of that creative process, which was great fun, but on-set, there were always moments like that clapping or things he would do with his voice. His voice was so unpredictable. He created this bizarre pitch. I’ve seen a lot of people try and imitate it since. But we never quite knew if he was going to go high or if he was going to go low. You never knew what that guy was going to do, and that’s what was terrifying about him.”
Nolan also talked about working with Heath Ledger. “I took huge pride in having been in any way involved with this great performer and his legacy. He was an extraordinary person and an extraordinary actor. And for him to be recognized in that way, I think, was very meaningful for his family and meaningful, I think, for film history. What he contributed, and he contributed in many different ways to film history, but that it be marked in that way, I was very proud to be a part of it.”
