by Christina A. Armani

Created on: April 10, 2009   Last Updated: April 11, 2009

Heath Ledger gave one of the best villainous performances of all time as the Joker in the movie The Dark Knight. The character of the joker is dark, haunted, mysterious, deranged, calculated, and even heartless. The character is very convincing and leads the audience to believe that the Joker really has no faith in humanity.

While Christian Bale plays the main role as Batman, everyone talks about Heath Ledgers commanding performance as the Joker. In fact, people are still talking about Heath's performance as the Joker even a year after the movie was released. One can hardly argue the fact that the Joker is far more memorable than Batman in the movie and that the Joker will be talked about for a long time to come.

The end of the movie left Batman wanting to prove the Joker wrong and to challenge the Joker's view of humanity. This means that the Joker is to appear again in a new Batman movie. Unfortunately, the Joker can not be played by Heath Ledger again since Ledger passed away shortly before the movie came into the theatres.

Can anyone imagine someone other than Heath Ledger in this role? What actor would not be diminished by having to follow his outstanding performance? Heath's triumph and his great loss leaves the creators of the Batman franchise both celebrating and worrying. They are aware of the fact that sooner or later the Joker needs return. How to pull this off without a performance suffering in comparison will be their greatest challenge Heath Ledger himself described his performance as "a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empaphy." While producer Christopher Nolan had other famous actors interested in the role of the Joker including Robin Williams, Steve Carell, and Adrien Brody, Ledger was chosen for the role because of his anarchic interpretation of the character.

To prepare for the role of the Joker, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a whole entire month. During his month of solitude, he formulated the character's posture, voice, and personality. Ledger even kept a diary in which he recorded the Joker's thoughts and feelings. If all that didn't deserve an Oscar then I do not know what did. The great news is that Heath Ledger did win an Oscar for his supporting role during the 81st Academy Awards. Would he have won the award if it was not for his untimely death? Of coarse he would have? None of the other supporting actors gave a performance that could compare to his.

* Note some information for this article came from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_(film)

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