We’re close to twenty years since Christopher Nolan made one of the best superhero films of all time.The Dark Knightpremiered in 2008, and it proved the director’s skillset in a genre that doesn’t often feature auteurs of his caliber. It also presented a different villain. A wicked and erratic criminal whose lack of reason made him all the more frightening. As it turns out,Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker didn’t only scare audiences out of their minds, it also left a mark on co-starMichael Caine, who has revealed that he felt truly unnerved by Ledger’s iteration of Batman’s most unpredictable nemesis.
Caine is currently promoting his new memoir “Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over,” which finds the two-time Academy Award-winnerreflecting on roles in filmslikeThe Cider House Rules,InceptionandMiss Congeniality, as well as detailing his experiences in the industry with a humorous set of answers to the questions he’s always asked (via EW). In the book, Caine recalls starring inThe Dark Knightas Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler and parental figure. He was one of several actors performing alongside the late, great Heath Ledger, who passed away before the film’s release and won a posthumous Oscar in the Best Supporting Actor category. Caine writes that he was “terrified,” but of the character itself and not the kind soul that was Ledger:
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“As Alfred says to Bruce, ‘Some men just want to watch the world burn,’ and that was Heath’s version of the character: the smeared make-up, the weird hair, the strange voice. It was chilling. Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action — I was terrified!
“He and Christian were good friends and always having fun together. And then he was transformed into this scheming monster, driving a whole city towards mayhem. Looking back, I think Heath’s excellence made all of us raise our game. The psychological battle between the Joker and Batman is completely riveting. Are they in any way the same? What nudges one man to do good, and the other to do evil? The Joker wants to torment Bruce by convincing him that they’re two of a kind.”
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In the memoir, Caine also reveals that during production they were all thinking that Ledgerwould win an Academy Awardfor his performance. He also reflects on how promoting the film became “intense” following Ledger’s untimely passing:
“The truth is, we’d all hoped he would win an Academy Award and thought he should, even while we were still filming the movie.
We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for The Dark Knight that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death. I was so pleased when he was awarded the posthumous Oscar, because it must have been at least some sort of comfort for his poor family.”
Batman’s sociopathic antagonist has been played by many acclaimed performers, and each of them adds a different layer to the Joker. The villain’s personality is frighteningly vast, and like Ledger showed, no one in Gotham City knows what the Joker is going to come up with next. The discussion aboutwho played the best Jokeris sure to go on forever, but Ledger’s is by far the most horrifying. In stark contrast to Ledger’s real-life personality. Caine continued:
“He was a lovely guy, very gentle and unassuming. I wondered how he was going to play the Joker, especially as Jack Nicholson’s take had been so iconic. Brilliantly, Heath ramped up the character’s psychotic side rather than going for one-liners. His Joker was deeply, deeply warped and damaged, though you never find out exactly why, or what he’s really looking for.”
Source:Entertainment Weekly
The Dark Knight
