10 Unusual Demands Movie Actors Made To Other Actors
2. Heath Ledger Goaded Christian Bale Into Actually Hitting Him - The Dark Knight
It takes a certain type of person to beg for a hulking thespian decked out in full Batman regalia to smash them in the chops for real in the thick of one of the most intense beatdowns in superhero movie history.
And Heath Ledger was exactly that sort of provocative soul, as it goes.
That's according to The Dark Knight himself Christian Bale, with the star who whacked on the muscle to portray Bruce Wayne admitting (via The Hollywood Reporter) that his Joker co-star was determined to tease out the authenticity within the pair's now-iconic interrogation scene.
As Bale would confess:
"He was kinda egging me on. I was saying, “You know what, I really don’t need to actually hit you. It’s going to look just as good if I don’t.” And he’s going, “Go on. Go on. Go on….” He was slamming himself around, and there were tiled walls inside of that set which were cracked and dented from him hurling himself into them."
Getting smacked around by this monstrous performer was likely no joke. But Ledger was seemingly all too happy to double down on his Clown Prince of Crime getting his ass whooped, and demanded Bale deliver the legit fury in the making of said hard-hitting sequence.