8 Little Known Ways Jack Nicholson Made Burton’s Joker Awesome

3. He Found Joker's Humour Tasteless

Although he's one of the flat-out funnier members of Batman's rogues gallery (i.e. doesn't need an over-the-top comedy actor or terrible puns to make him 'humorous'), it's not really possible to laugh along with the Joker. Heck, it took the Clown Prince of Crime kidnapping the Commissioner and crippling Barbra Gordon to get Batman to even come close to eliciting a chuckle. This, naturally, makes playing him convincingly rather tricky; there's no relatable motivation. Even in Batman, where we get to see the Joker pre-transformation, Jack Napier is still an off-kilter killer who would feature rather low on a list of movie characters you'd willingly have a pint with. Interestingly, this was made the role so attractive to Nicholson; he has since stated what he really likes about the character is that "his sense of humor is completely tasteless". Making that leap and loving that element allowed Nicholson to fully embrace the role, never questioning when was too much (although in that Prince dance may have been too far).