I’m probably the last person to see DARK KNIGHT who’s going to see it in the theaters, but while I was watching it I kept thinking “Ledger’s great… but who does he remind me of?” It’s the same thing that happened when I went to see THERE WILL BE BLOOD until it finally hit me halfway through the movie “John Huston”.
There were moments where he reminded me in mannerisms almost of Truman Capote (though for the life of me I don’t remember where- and it wasn’t in voice).
The main actor he reminds me of is his co-star Gary Oldman when Oldman played Mason Verger in Hannibal (youtube- the voice, not the looks [which reminded me of Fire Marshall Bill), but that’s still not quite it. There’s some actor in some performance he seemed to be basing at least a part of The Joker on; does anybody know or have any theories who it was?
On IMDB, it said he was inspired partly by Alex from “Clockwork Orange” and Sid Vicious (who was portrayed by Gary Oldman in “Sid and Nancy”). I can see aspects of both those characters in him…but he doesn’t really remind me of any one person in particular.
I also felt like I could see a number of influences, surprisingly disparate influences, that Ledger impressively blended into one character such that the resulting character, while being believable on his own, showed characteristics that instinctively one might assume are irreconcilable.
The one surprising influence that I and my brother recognized that I haven’t heard from anyone else (and this very well may never have crossed Ledger’s mind): Jimmy Stewart.
Gah! That’s what movie that was from! I had a book when I was about 14 about horror movies, and there was a big full page picture of Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine from that movie which creeped me right the heck out, and I’ve never been able to remember enough salient details to rediscover what movie it was from, but now that I see it, I know that was it. Holy crow, that was a creepy picture.
You are going to laugh, but I can almost guarantee you that the element you are missing is Al Franken. It’s his voice, particularly the way he pronouced the short a sound. The rest is all mixed up in there, but it’s Al Franken. (Thank you Enternainment Weekly for helping me answer the same question.)
Pardon the irritating aside, but for years I’ve never been able to hear a certain ABBA song or see that picture or certain others without hearing “Comprachico tell me what’s wrong…”.
Richard Nixon. More accurately, someone doing an impersonation of Richard Nixon. But then the sheer dementedness of his character took over and I forgot all about the Tricky Dick voice he had going on.
Agreed, agreed, I came in here to post the exact same thing, and I arrived at that completely without the help of EW. I thought it all the way home from the movie!
What I didn’t get was how a cop mentioned that the Joker’s clothes were all “custom made, no labels” but he was still wearing them! It was awfully polite of the GCPD to give him his clothes back instead of, say, an orange jumpsuit.
Or even wash away his makeup for a better chance at ID-ing him. (You can’t even really make a definitive comment about his age or race for his files without that.)
I gave this consideration before opening the thread, lest I be swayed, and am pleased to see several other references to one Gary Oldman. Admittedly, I’ve not seen him in much, only AirForce One came to mind, but he was for me the actor Ledger’s character seemed to emulate; often brilliant, insane, ruthless and impossible to predict.
