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Heath Ledger's Joker impressed Christian Bale

July 17, 2008

Actor Heath Ledger arrives at the premiere of "Candy" in New York City. (AP File Photo / November 6, 2006)

Christian Bale, who stars as Batman/Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight," was just as impressed by Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker as many critics have been. He spoke recently about the actor and the film with the Los Angeles Times' Elizabeth Snead.

Did you have any idea how Ledger was going to portray the Joker?

Well, I knew the tone of Chris Nolan's Gotham was one that we never wanted to have any caricatures. We never wanted to have the actor kind of peeking through and winking at the audience. And showing, "Hey, what a great time I'm having playing this funny, larger-than-life character."

We wanted to stay serious and dramatic with each of the portrayals of every single character. Heath was wonderful with that. He completely immersed himself and stayed under.

When he was the Joker, he was the Joker throughout, absolute commitment to that. And he's portrayed him in a way that hasn't been portrayed before. He has this kind of anarchic, punk, "Clockwork Orange" approach to it.

What was the first scene you shot with him?

It was in the interrogation room with the two of us. That was great because we were allowed to be by ourselves, without any crew inside the room. It was just the two of us, inside there with just mirrors, all the way around us. Everywhere we looked, there were these two freaks, sitting at a table, eyeballing each other.

I felt that I was seeing, in Heath, somebody who got the same enjoyment from acting that I do, and just recognized the ridiculousness of what we do as grown men, pretending to be other people, but loving that ridiculousness and loving the job all the more for that, and taking it all the more seriously, precisely because of that, and staying in character whilst we were inside of the garb.

Did the new Batsuit make shooting this film easier?

It was heavier, but it was actually much more comfortable. There's, like, 110 parts to this one; there was 103 to the original. And I could move my head. It was more mobile.