12 Comic Book Movie Moments That Ignored The Script

12. Heath Ledger’s Joker

Like any actor worth their salt Heath Ledger took preparing for his role in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight as the Joker very seriously. He went so far as to lock himself away in a hotel room for six weeks to get the legendary villain’s voice and physical tics – including his constant, lizard-like lip licking – down to a fine art and even designing The Joker’s Glasgow smile inspired makeup look himself.

Bringing so many of his own ideas to the role, Ledger naturally felt at ease getting a little creative with the Nolan brothers’ script and ended up ad-libbing a couple of moments that became integral to his iconic performance as the psychotic supervillain.

The Joker’s derisive round of applause from his jail cell when Gary Oldman’s Jim Gordon is promoted to commissioner was cleverly improvised by Ledger and kept in at Nolan’s request. And though the comic pause in the hospital explosion scene before it properly blew up was indeed scripted, the Joker’s reaction – his exasperated shrug and fiddling with the detonator – were the actor's own input.