The Joker (The Dark Knight)

A psychotic criminal mastermind portraying himself as an "agent of chaos", who rises to dominant power by terrorizing Gotham and plunging it into anarchy. Before Ledger was confirmed for the role in July 2006, Paul Bettany,[18] Lachy Hulme,[19] Adrien Brody,[20] Steve Carell,[21] and Robin Williams[22] publicly expressed interest in it. However, Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past (including unsuccessfully approaching Ledger for the role of Batman in Batman Begins) and was agreeable to Ledger's chaotic interpretation of the character.[23] When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he had realized a way to make the character work that was consistent with the film's tone:[24] he described his Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."[25] In the film, the Joker has a Glasgow smile, and his trademark chalk-white skin and red lips are makeup rather than the result of chemical bleaching, as in the traditional portrayal of the character. Throughout the film, the Joker states his desire to upset social order through crime, and comes to define himself by his conflict with Batman. To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice, and personality, and kept a diary, in which he recorded the Joker's thoughts and feelings.[17][26] While he initially found it difficult, Ledger eventually generated a voice unlike Jack Nicholson's character in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film.[25][26] He was also given Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, which he "really tried to read and put it down."[24] Ledger also cited A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious as "a very early starting point for Christian [Bale] and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether."[27][28] "There's a bit of everything in him. There's nothing that consistent," Ledger said, and added, "There are a few more surprises to him."[27] Ledger was allowed to shoot and mostly direct the videos the Joker sends out as warnings. Each take Ledger made was different from the last. Nolan was impressed enough with the first video shoot that he chose to not be present when Ledger shot the video with a kidnapped reporter (Anthony Michael Hall).[29] On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming The Dark Knight, Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose, leading to intense press attention and memorial tributes. "It was tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day [during editing]," Nolan recalled. "But the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish."[28] All of Ledger's scenes appear as he completed them in the filming; in editing the film, Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously.[30] Nolan has dedicated the film in part to Ledger's memory.