“Absolutely terrifying fantastic”: the actor who blew Michael Caine away
It’s a daunting task to take over an existing role from another actor. Audiences are already familiar with the character, and more specifically with their predecessor’s take on it, so expectations can be high. From James Bond to The Doctor, countless actors have been placed under intense scrutiny when put in this position, judged against the performances of those who came before them. Those who succeed just might earn the praise of Michael Caine.
One of the most common characters to appear on our screens, and to subject actors to this kind of criticism, is The Joker. Since the Batman villain was first conceived of in comic book form in the 1940s, he has been portrayed on-screen several times, each actor providing their own take on his crazed personality, clown makeup and iconic laugh.
Long before Joaquin Phoenix and Jared Leto took on the role, Jack Nicholson delivered an iconic performance as the supervillain in the late 1980s. Starring opposite the heroic Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s take on Batman, Nicholson donned bright white face paint and a purple suit in a rendition of The Joker that would prove hard to top.
It was almost two decades later when Christopher Nolan revived the character in the second entry of his own Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight. Nicholson had left big shoes to fill, but the director casted accordingly when he recruited Heath Ledger for the role. Though this decision would prove to be, perhaps, the best part of his venture into the superhero genre, even Caine had some initial doubts.
The second instalment of the Dark Knight trilogy saw Christian Bale return to the cape, while Caine revisited the role of his butler, Alfred Pennyworth. As he recalled during an interview with Collider, they knew that one of the most difficult aspects of the film would be reinventing The Joker, after Nicholson had delivered such a memorable performance as the character.
“The thing we thought was gonna be the biggest problem is we’re doing a movie about The Joker,” he explained, “and Jack Nicholson has already done it superbly and quite extraordinarily.” But any doubts were quickly quelled when Ledger had red face paint smeared across his lips. Refusing to bend to the pressure of his predecessors, he would deliver perhaps the greatest performance as The Joker in movie history.
Ledger isolated himself to completely embody the psychopathic character, barely sleeping and jotting thoughts down in a diary. His final performance paired a distinctive voice with unflinching menace to create a terrifying depiction of The Joker, one that even shook his most experienced co-stars, including Caine.
“Along comes Heath Ledger and does it completely differently and absolutely terrifying fantastic,” Caine surmised. His praise is certainly warranted, and was shared by critics and audiences alike. Distinguishing himself from the Jokers that came before him, as well as those that would come after, Ledger tapped into the terrifying nature of the character and delivered a scene-stealing performance.
Ledger passed away in the same year The Dark Knight was released, winning a post-humous Academy Award for his performance in the film. Over a decade later, it still remains one of the most memorable performances not only in the superhero genre, but in the entirety of modern cinema, marking one of the most beloved reinventions of a character put to screen.
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