4. Andrew Robinson (Scorpio) in Dirty Harry
Despite all of Ledgers efforts to imbue the Joker with a weird likeability, there are moments during The Dark Knight in which he purposely causes the skin to crawl, hes so creepy in his delivery. This is arguably why hes such a great character; Ledger brings duplicity to him that invariably causes a duality in the way we feel about him. Theres a particular movie character that, when I first saw Ledgers Joker, I immediately made a connection to and thats Scorpio from the first Dirty Harry movie; possibly one of the most horrifically villainous characters ever captured on film. Theres fiery, bubbling venom and a cold, terrifying, all-encompassing hatred in Scorpio that Robinson conveys superbly, and which I personally believe had a hand in Ledgers research for Joker (though try as I might, I cant produce evidence to support the theory; its a theory of my own machination). My Joker connection here is based largely on the School Bus scene (amongst others), in which Scorpio attempts to calm a group of kidnapped children while barely containing his hatred towards them. I dont know, to me it just pangs of future Joker. Check it out to see what I mean: http://youtu.be/LzUkXJpezyI