The Dark Truth Behind Heath Ledger's Joker

4. The Beginning

Ledger was by no means an unknown when he was cast as The Joker. He'd already been in acclaimed movies and popular ones and his own performances in the likes of Ned Kelly and Brokeback Mountain confirmed him as a performer of some ability. To think of him as teen heartthrob solely for his role in 10 Things I Hate About You is to misunderstand his career entirely. Unfortunately, it's also exactly what happened in the fan communities who rejected his casting outright.

Christopher Nolan had been keen to work with Ledger earlier in his career. He told IGN at the end of December 2007 that the two had met "several times on projects in the past and nothing had ever come of it." The actor was even in the running to play Batman for Batman Begins but had rejected the idea of playing a superhero convincingly. By the time Nolan was seeking his Joker for the Batman Begins, who had been seeded at the end of that film, the director said Ledger got wind and put himself forward.

Other names were suggested for the role, like Christopher Eccleston, Steve Carell, Robin Williams, Paul Bettany and Adrien Brody and would become pillars for outraged fanboys to cling to while citing evidence of Ledgers unsuitability, but he earned it himself. In hindsight, the criticisms look ridiculous.

And while Jonathan Nolan was given specific tasks in writing the Joker - like turning to his earliest appearances in the comics and watching Fritz Lang's The Testament Of Dr Mabuse for instance - Ledger's input is what shaped the performance. He set out with a couple of agendas. First of all, he wanted to ensure his performance was different to what had gone before. He wanted to set his Joker apart from Jack Nicholson's from 1989's Batman.