The Dark Knight (Christian Bale) has some questions for the Joker(Heath Ledger) in THE DARK KNIGHT(2008).
© Warner Bros
Michael Caine Describes Ledger's JOKER
By: Jarrod Sarafin, News EditorDate: Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Source: MTV Movies & Wizard
While doing a press junket for his upcoming movie, SLEUTH, Brian Jacks over MTV had a chance to sit down and discuss his character and the highly anticipated DARK KNIGHT sequel. In the interview, Caine described the new version of the Joker portrayed by Heath Ledger and told us what to expect from his character..
From MTV:
Transparent interviewer technique #1: butter up the subject. I began by telling Caine that clearly the star of the new film will be Alfred, judging from his voiceover in the teaser trailer. After a hearty chuckle, Caine said, “I’ll tell you who it’s about. It’s about Heath Ledger as The Joker. He will be the talking point of the next Batman.”
So will he be scarier than say Scarecrow or Two-Face? Yes, indeed Caine said, calling Ledger’s turn, “one of the scariest performances I’ve ever seen.” Caine added that while he saw the Joker, he never saw Two-Face. And don’t look for any big action scenes involving the loyal butler. Presumably speaking about director Christopher Nolan, Caine said, “He kept me out of it this time.”
This description does seem to fit with previous reports on the return of the JOKER by Heath Ledger, Chris Nolan, David Goyer and Gary Oldman. Our friends over at Wizard gathered every tidbit they could manage on what has been said about the character..
“We found a way of looking at the character and saw what role he could play in the film,” explained Nolan. “The joker card at the end of the first film created the right kind of feeling. That was the hook that got us thinking about the next one.”
Nolan’s writing partner (and younger brother) Jonah pointed the director toward the Joker’s first two comic book stories, both of which took place in 1940’s Batman #1. “We’ve come around to something that’s eerily close to those first two appearances,” revealed the director.
In the issue, the Joker appears as a grinning mastermind who predicts his murderous crimes over the radio before meticulously carrying them out. Each cold-blooded, calculated killing ultimately ends with the victim’s face frozen into a solid, monstrous grin. If the film version follows closely, as the writers have said it will, expect plenty of chilling death scenes.
“Once we established ‘Batman Begins,’ it was one take on Batman,” explained screenwriter David S. Goyer. “We had to decide, ‘How does the Joker fit in this world?’”
“I’m not going for the same thing [Jack Nicholson] went for,” Ledger said in interviews. “That would be stupid. Tim Burton did a more fantastical kind of thing and Chris Nolan is doing nitty-gritty handheld realism. I love what [Nicholson] did, and that is part of why I want to do that role. But it would obviously be murder if I tried to imitate what he did.”
“What Heath is doing,” Oldman triumphantly stated in Chicago, searching for the right words to finish his thought, “…he’s going to knock everyone out of the park.”
The Chicago footage echoed that sentiment as scenes of Gotham cars and buildings literally on fire littered the clip, proving the power struggle mutates into a gang war at one point. As for Joker plot specifics, Ledger points to one comic in particular.
“The Killing Joke was the one that was handed to me,” admitted the actor in interviews. “I guess that book explains a little bit of where [the Joker’s] from, but not too much.”
The Killing Joke, written by Alan Moore with art by Brian Bolland, explores the origins of the man who would become the Joker—a loser comedian caught up in a crime and then accidentally disfigured after his wife and baby die in an unconnected mishap. And even if the details are different, a similar, sympathetic glimpse into the slow, tortured birth of the Joker may be present in “Dark Knight.”
The DARK KNIGHT returns to theaters July 18, 2008.
