5. Jack Nicholsons Joker
Considering that Nicholson played the exact same character as Ledger did, but in a different movie, youd be naive to think that Ledger avoided researching the hell out of the performance he was getting ready to set out to better. Maybe between them, Nolan and Ledger ended up crafting a monumentally different version of the character for the Dark Knight series, but without Nicholsons performance to precede it, who knows what we would have ended up with. If anything, Nicholsons Joker was a blue-print for what Ledger could do differently; an inspiration in its own right. For example, Nicholson adds slapstick to the role, so Ledger does not. Nicholsons delivery is often played for laughs, so Ledgers is not. Nicholson comes off as zany (one mainstay of the comic book Joker) so Ledger focuses more on delivering menace (a different mainstay, but a mainstay nonetheless). How can Nicholson have not been a defining influence? After all, before Ledger, Nicholson delivered THE cinematic Joker performance. Despite Ledgers take doing a complete about face from our expectations you can probably attribute its surprising originality to Nolan and Ledgers desire to offer something different from that which had come before it.