"IM JUST AHEAD OF THE CURVE"

Six reasons Heath Ledger’s Joker is the perfect movie villain

1 He upstaged Jack When Jack Nicholson played Batman’s greasepaint-faced nemesis in 1989, everyone thought it was the definitive big-screen take on the Joker. As Michael Caine said in 2007, “You do not really want to follow Jack into anything. Unless it’s a nightclub.” But Heath Ledger went there (not the nightclub). He came up with a far grungier and jagged-edgier take on the character, which made Nicholson’s bouncy performance look tame in comparison. And when Caine first saw Ledger in action? “I flipped. I completely forgot my lines.” 2 He’s served raw This baddie comes blissfully unburdened by backstory… or even, in the strictest sense, motive. Most antagonists are avaricious or vengeful gasbags, but the Joker just stalks right in and gleefully unleashes chaos — when he isn’t teasing us with cockamamie,

cliché-deflating origin tales, or setting light to the loot. We’re never bothered by the why in The Dark Knight; the Joker simply does, and absolutely must be stopped.

He’s ripped from the best 3

(or rather, worst)

Co-writers Christopher and Jonah Nolan didn’t merely pluck out old comic-books for inspiration. Christopher ordered his brother to watch Fritz Lang’s creepy 1922 crime thriller Dr. Mabuse The Gambler to help find the Joker, while Jonah himself cites “the peyote stories of Native American mythology and Loki in Norse mythology” as influences. Nolan also encouraged Ledger to channel extreme tearaway Alex in A Clockwork Orange, while punk legends Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious left their saliva flecks on the character, too.

He’s gimmick-free 4

Compared with most movie villains, Joker’s a lo-fi, DIY kinda bad-guy: no hi-tech hideout, no nasty gadgets. Not even the weaponised trick-shop tat previous Jokers wielded. All he needs to put the willies up a pack of Gotham hoods is a bomb-vest and a sharpened pencil. Which makes him horribly apposite for the post-9/11, War On Terror world.

He’s a sheer 5

talent cocktail

Everybody involved in the creation of The Dark Knight’s Joker delivered their best work, from Nolan himself (keen to tackle the character “from a psychological perspective” rather than in terms of showmanship) right through to prosthetics supervisor Conor O’sullivan, who put that ragged Chelsea smile on Ledger’s face. The MVP, of course, was the star himself: fearless, peerless and clearly having the time of his shockingly short life. “It’s the most fun I’ve had playing a role,” Ledger told Empire on the Chicago set in August 2007. “It is the bomb.”

He’s too good to imitate 6

Ten years on from The Dark Knight and we’ve still seen nothing close to a (super) villain performance so terrifyingly, entertainingly unhinged as Ledger’s. When Jared Leto had a crack at the character for Suicide Squad, it was a totally different approach: blingy psycho-gangster rather than agenda-free terrorist. Forget about Jack; it’s now Heath you shouldn’t want to follow.