In the seven years since his early death, Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” still reigns supreme as the best performance in a superhero movie ever, and it remains a pop cultural touchstone. An old Hero Complex interview with Nolan at the time of the film’s release, has been making the rounds online, tied with images of Ledger at work in his iconic role.
The intense interrogation scene between Christian Bale’s Batman and Ledger’s Joker is the scene that Nolan always felt was “so important and central” to his film and it was something that everyone on set was looking forward to doing. It was something that was scheduled early on in the production, with both actors eager to dive into the showcase scene. Rehearsal was kept to minimum to save any magic for the set, with actors focusing their efforts in pre-production mostly on the choreography of the violence for safety reasons, “but even with that [they] tried to keep it loose and improvisational.”
The whole interview is well worth a read especially since the interrogation is a scene that Nolan is obviously very proud of, even saying at one point that he “could actually talk about this scene for hours.” Check out the behind-the-scenes photos below.
