Heath Ledger Documentary Clip Revisits ‘The Dark Knight’ Joker

A clip from I Am Heath Ledger, the documentary about the life of Heath Ledger, explores Ledger’s iconic role as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

In the clip, Ledger’s former agent, Steve Alexander, remembers the first time that he spoke to Ledger about the possibility of playing the Joker.

“I called Heath and I said, ‘This is what’s happening. They’re putting together the next Batman movie and the Joker’s going to be the villain and is that of interest?’” Alexander recalls. “There was no pause. It was like, ‘Absolutely, I want that. What do we do? I’ll get on a plane, I’ll fly out, I want to meet with Chris. Can you get me in a room with Chris Nolan?’”

After that, the video includes some voice over from Ledger describing his transformation into the Joker.

“I’d already seen this world he’d created in Batman Begins, so I knew there was an opportunity for a new version of the Joker and that excited me and also I knew instantly what to do,” Ledger says. “I locked myself away for six weeks in a room, and I kind of came up with this creep. Walking around like a madman and finding posture, finding stance, finding his voice was very important. When you find the voice, you find the breath within the voice.”

Ledger died in January 2008, months ahead of the premiere of The Dark Knight. Ledger’s Joker was among the most heavily praised aspects of the critically-acclaimed film and he was posthumously awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.

The Dark Knight currently has an 89.09 ComicBook.com Composite Score, the highest ComicBook.com Composite Score of any comic book movie. The film also has a 4.47 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Rating, making it the second-highest rated comic book of all time among ComicBook.com users.

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