It goes without saying at this point that Heath Ledger‘s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight is one of the all-time greatest roles in cinema, not just for Batman or superhero movies, but for all movies. The actor even earned an Oscar award posthumously for his performance.
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Even so, not everyone was sold when Christopher Nolan revealed the casting of Ledger in his followup to Batman Begins. Fans were not thrilled and, apparently, neither were Warner Bros. Pictures executives.
In a new roundtable with genre writers and showrunners, The Dark Knight co-writer [and Christopher Nolan’s brother] Jonathan Nolan spoke about when Ledger was first cast as the Joker, explaining some of the uncertainty people had about the actor.
“When I wrote The Dark Knight, Chris [Nolan] had to figure out how we’d tackle the Joker. Chris had a good meeting with Heath Ledger. And no one got it — I didn’t get it, the studio didn’t get it,” Nolan said in a roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter. “And the fan community was … we were fucking pilloried for it. ‘Disaster, worst casting decision ever!’ Chris just stuck to his guns. It was a question of not giving the fans what they’re asking for but what they want — which is, ‘Let’s find a really fuckin’ serious actor, somebody who’s going to come in and just tear this role to pieces.’”
Obviously, the casting worked, despite the angry nerds who cried about Ledger’s role in Brokeback Mountain and 10 Things I Hate About You being reasons to disqualify him from contention.
Ledger’s performance as the Joker set a new benchmark for the character that has yet to be met; Jared Leto’s role was not well received in Suicide Squad, and now Joaquin Phoenix has the unenviable task of playing the character in The Joker.
Heath Ledger’s role has since gone down as a Hollywood legend, particularly due to the fact that the actor died from a drug overdose before The Dark Knight premiered in theaters. And though rumors propagated after his demise, his co-star Michael Jai White takes issue with the urban legend that has since spread about Ledger.
“It upsets me that Heath gets put in a category, like he was a method actor who inhabited this darkness that consumed him because people write that story in their head,” White revealed to THR. “And that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Heath was playful. When the director would say ‘cut,’ he would go back to this easygoing, very affable type of guy. Even when there was a day player or people in shorter roles, naturally they tend to give him his privacy and space, but Heath would be on the one initiating the conversation. He was that type of guy.”
