How to Play a Villain: The Dark Knight

It’s no secret that Batman is a giant in popular culture; From comics to series, to movies, Bruce Wayne and the world of Gotham has had a huge impact on the world. The Dark Knight Trilogy of movies was an especially influential depiction of the world of Batman, being decisively more gritty and grounded in the darkness of reality. The Dark Knight specifically had impeccable performances on all fronts and gained a heavy amount of accolades that it deserved entirely, and it is the host of one of the greatest performances in film, the Clown Prince of Crime himself, the Joker.

Although there was an initial uproar from fans over the casting decision for the Dark Knight’s Joker, Heath Ledger’s performance is nothing short of legendary. Everything, down to the simple way that he carries himself in the film, is done perfectly for the world created by the Nolan Brothers. When I was rewatching the film to prepare for writing this article, I found that throughout the whole film, the Joker’s presence can be felt, as if his influence covers the entire city of Gotham and cannot be stopped.

He set out to create a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” as he said to the New York Times, and he exceeded in this task. In the film, he carries himself partially hunched over, always seeming a bit unbalanced, creating the sense that he is not well mentally. Most shots of him have him facing slightly downwards, always looking down to others, showing that he dominates any situation he’s in. He has no care for anyone’s lives, not even his own, as exemplified by the bank robbery at the head of the film, where he has instructed all members of the crew to kill each other, and in another scene, he threatens to kill himself and all others around him, opening his jacket to show a cluster of grenades which he has ready to detonate.

The Joker’s actions in the film also perfectly exemplify Heath Ledger’s interpretation. Unlike all other criminals in the film, the Joker happily shows his face in public and makes bold moves like murdering people in broad daylight and showing exactly who his targets are, showing people that he has complete control. He smiles and makes jokes during intense situations, showing his psychological degradation and his lack of any care for human life. The thing that makes his jokes much more terror-inducing and uncomfortable is that some of them are done well, and there is an uneasy amount of genuine humor in them, creating an uncanny feeling when juxtaposed with the horrendous actions they’re associated with.

Heath Ledger took drastic steps to flesh out his unique version of the Joker, such as isolating himself in a London hotel room for six weeks solely to work on the character and becoming heavily involved in making choices for makeup and costume. This role made him lose plenty of sleep, as he thrust all of himself into the role, he found himself falling deeper into insomnia. In an interview with the New York Times, he stated “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going” when referring to his time as the Joker. Heath Ledger even asked Christian Bale to actually hit him during filming to make scenes more genuine, pushing his physical and mental limits to make his Joker as real as possible. He put everything he had into this performance, and although it paid off in the end, it contributed to his untimely death.

Heath Ledger died on January 22nd, 2008, from an accidental overdose of prescription sleeping medication, mere months after filming for The Dark Knight had ended. The Dark Knight was in the editing phase at the time and was released on July 18th of the same year. Although he never got to be there to accept his academy award for the role, he died knowing he had done all he could to create the best Joker that he could, and he will forever be remembered for his outstanding performance.