Heath Ledger

The late Heath Ledger portrayed The Joker in The Dark Knight which he won an Oscar for the role.

Significant roles[]

Snowy Bowles in Sweat (1996)
Toby in Black Rock (1997)
Conor in Roar (1997)
Oberon in Paws (1997)
Patrick Verona in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Jimmy in Two Hands (1999)
Gabriel Martin in The Patriot (2000)
William Thatcher in A Knight's Tale (2001)
Sonny Grotowski in Monster's Ball (2001)
Harry Feversham in The Four Feathers (2002)
Ned Kelly in Ned Kelly (2003)
Alex Bernier in The Sin Eater (2003)
Skip in Lords of Dogtown (2005)
Jacob Grimm in The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Casanova in Casanova (2005)
Dan in Candy (2006)
Robby in I'm Not There. (2007)
The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008)
Tony Shepherd in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

Quotes[]

"If he was drowning in a pool it would be scary. I'm obviously not going for the same thing he went for. That would just be stupid, and it's also two very different styles of directors and filmmaking. Tim Burton did a more fantastical kind of thing and Chris Nolan is doing the nitty-gritty kind of handheld realism thing. I love what he did and it is part of why I want to do it, and I remember seeing Batman and thinking how much fun it would be to put on that mask and to attempt to do something along those lines. But it would obviously just be murder if I tried to imitate and pointless to the project."
"You know, I want it to be a very sinister kind of thing. It's so early that I'm trying to leave it open at this point and I don't want to be glued down to any one idea. … I've been kind of trying to delay my commitment to the preparation process on that because I'm just trying to extend my holiday. I definitely have an image in my head and I definitely have something up my sleeve."
"I think that's kind of helping me a little bit, the fact that I was never really a fan of comics. I didn't exactly despise comic books or comic book movies but I was never really one to read them that much. I never sought out the films too often but I would enjoy them if I sat down and watched them. So because of that I really feel that I'm not carrying as much pressure. The Killing Joke is the one that was handed to me. It's really good. So I think the film is obviously going to be a bit about the beginning of The Joker. I guess The Killing Joke explains a little bit of where he's from, but not too much. From what I've gathered, there isn't a lot of information about the Joker and it's kind of left that way."
"I did do a 3-D kind of image-scan kind of thing, but I don't know what they're doing with it or where they're taking it. I had this like Bat-truck turn up at my house. It was just this massive truck and inside it had all these gadgets and all these cameras that zoom around you up and down and instantly project a three-dimensional image of you. I've never used anything high-tech like that before in a film and I felt like I was in the back of the Knight Rider truck or something!"
"It's just the tights and undies that I have a problem with, and the boots. I would just feel stupid and silly. I couldn't pull it off and there are other people who can perfectly, but I just couldn't take myself seriously. And I feel like this is an opportunity for me to not take myself too seriously, and for some reason I just gravitated towards the Joker and I knew I had something to give to him. And I just instantly had an idea of how to do it."

Trivia[]

Ledger was considered for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Begins before Christian Bale was cast.