"He carries his interests around with him, and his kitchen table was awash in objects: a chess set, assorted books, various empty glasses, items of clothing. Here too was his Joker diary, which he began compiling four months before filming began. It is filled with images and thoughts helpful to the Joker back story, like a list of things the Joker would find funny (AIDS is one of them). Mr Ledger seemed almost embarrassed that the book had been spotted, as if he had been caught trying to get extra credit in school".The New York Times
Sarah Lyall - November 4, 2007.

"Heath used the diary on set, he carried it with him a lot, it just helped him put him in a certain place in his head".John Caglione Jr, The Joker makeup artist.

The aim of this website is to delve deeply into one of the most iconic portrayals in film history: Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight. Central to this exploration is the diary he kept while developing the character, carefully analyzed and reconstructed as fully as possible using today’s available sources.The information provided here will also debunk and dispel unfounded media speculation that playing the Joker negatively impacted Heath’s well-being. For instance, some media outlets have wrongly claimed or implied that certain passages reflected Heath’s own words, when a simple analysis revealed that he was actually quoting lines from books or comic books. Shame on those so-called "journalists", they are the real joke.

The Diary and related material

'Heath Ledger: Too Young To Die' Documentary

In the full documentary, six additional pages are partially visible, you can see them in the video below.

Leaked images

eeBoo website and related images

Thanks to the user IAmJ on the therpf.com forum, it was possible to identify the diary: it is the Composition Notebook titled "Elephant & Nemo" produced by eeBoo of New York. It is no longer in production but was available from around 2005 to 2010.

Script with collage by Heath Ledger

This copy of 'The Dark Knight' script was on display at the 'Heath Ledger: A Life in Pictures' exhibition in Perth and Canberra, Australia. Often shown alongside the diary, as it also features collages created by Heath.
The comic clipping on the left is from Batman #655 (July 2006), the one on the right and the comic cover is from Detective Comics #475 (February 1978), collage from that comic are used in the diary as well.

Heath Ledger’s personal script

Heath Ledger's personal script from the production of 'The Dark Knight'.
Contained within a black ring binder, the unannotated script comprises 135 pages printed single-sided on bright pink US Letter paper. The green title page features the production title, is dated "3/23/2006" and has a list of revisions and the dates they were added. Each page features a printed watermark and Ledger's name in the bottom right corner. From the personal collection of Heath Ledger's personal assistant who was gifted it by Heath Ledger on the completion of filming.

Articles

He carries his interests around with him, and his kitchen table was awash in objects: a chess set, assorted books, various empty glasses, items of clothing. Here too was his Joker diary, which he began compiling four months before filming began. It is filled with images and thoughts helpful to the Joker back story, like a list of things the Joker would find funny (AIDS is one of them). Mr Ledger seemed almost embarrassed that the book had been spotted, as if he had been caught trying to get extra credit in school.The New York Times
Sarah Lyall - November 4, 2007.

Police investigators who responded to the Oscar-winning actor’s Soho loft after his fatal 2008 drug overdose walked into a world filled with Batman comic books, literature on the Joker and clowns, small clown statues and recordings of Ledger practicing his oddly shifting Joker voice in high and low octaves, a law enforcement source revealed. Ledger had immersed himself in the reading material that extended back to the very beginnings of Batman, the Joker and clown performers, the source noted. “He was studying up on the origins of clowns and all of the previous Jokers like Jack Nicholson’s character and Cesar Romero’s, who was the first Joker on TV”, the source said. “He was trying to make his role different from the roles of the other actors. He was even studying how to make his voice different from theirs”. Detectives also noticed that the loft was “immaculately clean”, with all of Ledger’s research on the Joker neatly stacked. “He was a perfectionist who clearly had a lot of respect for the character. All of that stuff was very tidy. He cared a lot about it”.New York Post (Page Six)
Jamie Schram - October 24, 2016.

Comics

Ledger commented on the importance of the comics in helping him establish his characterisation of the Joker during a 2007 interview with Empire:"It’s a combination of reading all the comic books I could that were relevant to the script and then just closing my eyes and meditating on it. I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices — it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath — someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts."So let's take a deep dive into the comics featuring the Joker that are relevant to The Dark Knight story.

Timeline

I think it is useful to provide this timeline to better understand the production of The Dark Knight and how Heath planned his study of the character. Moreover, it shows that he had finished portraying The Joker a full five months before his tragic passing. Unfortunately, this is a fact that is often underreported.

Lip-Licking Tic

Empire posted an oral history of The Dark Knight, and it’s there that prosthetics supervisor Conor O'Sullivan talked about the way he designed Joker's facial appearance with all of the scars. Ledger called the makeup effects for the character "new technology,” and explained that "the scars are made out of silicone not prosthetic." Ledger went on to say that his "whole bottom lip [was] fake."In the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, we learn that the silicone pieces of his lip would come loose sometimes, and because of this, the actor started licking his lips to make sure they stayed in place.Ledger just ended up leaning into that and incorporated the licking as a part of his character's creepy mannerisms.

Tom Waits - Inspiration

In 1979, Tom Waits appeared in this famous interview on The Don Lane Show, a popular Australian talk show. Years later, he and Heath Ledger starred together in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, filmed after The Dark Knight. Both Ledger and Waits had previously worked with Gilliam.It’s easy to imagine that Ledger, being Australian, was familiar with this interview and with Waits as an artist. While he never confirmed it as inspiration for his Joker, the connection seems pretty clear.

Jack Lemmon as Daphne in "Some Like It Hot" - Inspiration

Many users online have pointed out an unexpected connection between Jack Lemmon’s “Daphne” in Some Like It Hot and Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. The smile, the laughter, the mannerisms, and the resemblance becomes especially strong in the hospital scene, making it hard to ignore once noticed.

John Caglione Jr, MakeUp Artist

Christopher Nolan revisits his favorite scene in ‘The Dark Knight’

October 28, 2008 - Los Angeles Times, Hero Complex - by Geoff Boucher

The “Dark Knight” director gives a deep dissection of his single favorite scene in the movie, the gripping interrogation sequence, which (with no special effects and only bare-bones lighting) would become “the fulcrum on which the whole movie turns.”I asked the London native to pick one scene in the film that he would circle as the essential moment in the movie, either in its service to the overall story or the film’s texture. He answered quickly.Nolan: To be honest, it’s pretty easy for me. The scene that is so important and so central to me is the interrogation scene between Batman and the Joker in the film. When we were writing the script, that was always one of the central set pieces that we wanted to crack.GB: At what point in the production schedule did you shoot it?Nolan: On the set, we shot it fairly early on. It was actually one of the first things that Heath had to do as the Joker. He told me he was actually pretty excited to tear off a big chunk early on, really get one of the Joker’s key scenes up in the first three weeks of a seven-month shoot. He and I both liked the idea of just diving in, as did Christian Bale. We had rehearsed the scene a tiny bit. We had just ripped through it a couple of times in pre-production just to get some slight feel of how it was going to work. Neither of them wanted to go too far with it in rehearsal. They had to rehearse some of the fight choreography, but even with that, we tried to keep it loose and improvisational. They wanted to save it all. We were all pretty excited to get on with a big chunk of dialogue and this big intense scene between these two iconic characters. It was quite bizarre to see Batman across the table across from the Joker [laughs]. I’m glad you asked this. You know, I could actually talk about this scene for hours.
We had a lot of time to shoot it too, because it was so early on. Quite often, as you get behind on other things and you run toward the end of the shoot, things can get very squeezed. But you tend to schedule the first few weeks very generously to give the crew and the actors and myself time to find our feet and find our pace. So we had a couple of days to do it.GB: Can you give me a snapshot memory from those days shooting the scene?Nolan: It was a great set built into a location. It had all of the advantages of feeling that we were in a real place. Nathan Crowley, the production designer, built these great mirrors and this long, tiled room that I really loved the look of; it had the feeling almost of an abattoir or something. That all fed into the brutality of the scene. We wanted to be very edgy, very brutal. We wanted it to be the point at which Batman is truly tested by the Joker and you see that the Joker is truly capable of getting under everybody’s skin. I’m realizing this now about that scene — I haven’t thought this through before — the synthesis of all the different elements that I’m most interested in within filmmaking all come in that scene.
The scene starts between Gary Oldman [as James Gordon] and Heath with the lights out, and [director of photography] Wally Pfister literally just lit the scene with the desk lamp, the table lamp, and nothing else. And then when the lights come on, Batman is revealed, and the rest of the scene plays out with a massive overexposure. He overexposed like five stops, I want to say, and then printed it down to bring some of the color back in. But it’s this incredibly intense overhead light which let us move in any direction. We had a handheld camera and shot however we wanted, be very spontaneous.For me creatively, that had been about inverting the expectation. We’ve all seen so many of these dark movie interrogation scenes where somebody is being given the third degree. We just wanted to completely flip that on its head. And have the bright, harsh, bleak light sort show you the Joker’s make-up and its decay. The Batsuit was redesigned for this film. And unlike the suit that we had in “Batman Begins,” it’s capable of really being shown in incredible detail and still hold up to that kind of scrutiny under that bright light. The suit looked much more real and more like a functional thing this time. The whole scene was about showing something real and brutal and getting this real harshness.GB: There’s remarkable physicality of the actors in that scene. They are such different presences in the room: Christian is all dark mass and bottled fury and Heath has this spindly weirdness. …Nolan: Yes, and I think you start to see it even at the beginning of the scene where everything is in closer. There are tight close-ups with just a little drift to the camera. We start in a very controlled way, but even within that frame, the way Heath is bobbing in and out —and he’s actually bobbing in and out of the focal plane because, you know, it’s very hard to follow someone whose leaning toward camera the whole time. It actually really adds something. We’re continually trying to catch him with the focus. You really see his movement back and forth. That way, even in a tight frame, you have this sense of strangeness. On the other hand, you have Batman sitting there just very, very controlled, restrained as you say. Then there’s a point where it spills over into real physicality and he drags the Joker across the table. We go handheld at that point and shot the rest of the scene with handheld to be very spontaneous in its movement. They had rehearsed the stunts and the fight stuff very specifically, but we really let the actors work within that. I had never seen anybody sell a punch the way Heath was able to with Christian. I got the violence I wanted. What I felt was really important creatively for the scene was that we show Batman going too far. We show him effectively torturing someone for information because it’s become personal.Christian and I had talked a lot on “Batman Begins” about finding a moment in that film where you actually worry that Batman will go too far. A moment where his rage might spill over and he would break his rules. We never found that moment. It just wasn’t there in that story. There was a lot of strength and aggression in the way he played the part, but I don’t think the story provided that element of losing control. What the Joker provides in the second film is the fact that his entire motivation is to push people’s buttons and find their rules set and it turn it on itself. And Batman of course places such importance on his rules, his morals. It’s what distinguishes him, in his mind, from a common vigilante. The Joker is able to twist him around and make him question his own approach and his own actions.GB: In the first film, the Batman’s most memorable moments of intense aggression feel more like theater — he’s doing it in a calculated show to scare people. The first movie seems to be about Batman’s fear; the second one is about his rage.Nolan: Exactly. That’s why we never found that moment of danger, the one we had talked about, where there’s this danger that Batman will just lose it and go too far. That rage is very much a central part of the story in ‘The Dark Knight,’ and that interrogation scene is the fulcrum on which the whole movie turns. I think Batman finds out — and Bruce Wayne finds out — a lot about himself in that scene. I was just delighted to get to see Christian show that rage. And it’s wonderfully balanced with Gary’s control as well. Even though everyone remembers the scene as being the Joker and Batman, Gordon played a very important part to setting it up and allowing this interrogation to happen. And then as he is watching from the sideline, he sees the exact point where this is going too far. He knows Batman well enough to observe this, to recognize it. He tries to get in, but Batman has locked the door. And what we get to lead to, by the end of the scene, when he’s just pounding on the Joker, I think Heath managed to find the exact essence of the threat of the Joker and who he is: He’s being pounded in the face and he’s laughing and loving it. There’s nothing you can do. As he tells Batman, “You have nothing to do with all of your strength.” There’s this sort of impotence of the strong and the armored and the very muscular Batman; he’s very powerful, but there’s no useful way for this power to be exercised in this scene. He has to confront that.Originally, at the end of that scene, once the Joker reveals his information, Christian dropped him and then, almost as an afterthought, he kicked him in the head as he walked out of the room. We wound up removing that bit. It seemed a little too petulant for Batman in a way. And really, more than that, what it was is that I liked how Christian played it: When he drops the Joker, he has realized the futility of what he’s done. You see it in his eyes. How do you fight someone who thrives on conflict? It’s a very loose end to be left with.

Christopher Nolan

“Heath and [makeup artist] John Caglione and myself were trying to figure out a way to make the clown makeup, but make it more threatening, somehow more real world.” In the end, Nolan took inspiration from an iconic British painter with a rather skewed artistic outlook.“I showed Heath Francis Bacon’s paintings,” the director continued, “And sort of looked at these great canvases, the way he’d smear the faces, the painting of the faces and make these very bizarre, blurred sort of distortions as if the paint is running on the canvas, or smeared across it.”With Bacon in mind, Nolan, Ledger and Caglione set about creating the Joker’s makeup so that it would appear smeared across the face to represent the inner workings of the character himself. “They really manage to put together a great texture for that, and it degrades through the film,” Nolan said. “It has a very tactile sense; you can really see the form of the makeup as it’s caked on the face.”The real brilliance of the Joker’s makeup, though, is the fact that Ledger wanted to apply it himself at least a few times throughout filming “as the character would”.Nolan noted: “The thing we got from that is that if you watch the film, he’s got traces of makeup on his fingers the whole time as he would.” This shows that behind the scenes of The Dark Knight, there was a genuine sense of genius at work.

I know you are loath to talk about Heath, for understandable reasons, but there's no avoiding the fact that when you watch the movie, his performance is so exciting that it's the first thing you want to talk about.
Yeah, I know. I've been waiting all this time for everyone to see it, and working very hard not to screw it up.What about Heath made you cast him?
I'd met Heath a couple times over the years about different projects, but nothing ever worked out. One time he gave me a speech that a lot of young actors have given me, where they basically say that they haven't achieved, as serious actors, what they want to before they're pushed into being movie stars. And of all the actors who've given me that speech, he's the only one that I would actually want to pay $10 to see give that kind of performance. And he did it in "Brokeback Mountain." The stunning lack of vanity, the sheer loneliness of that character—it's a staggering performance. So when I heard he was interested in the Joker, there was never any doubt. You could just see it in his eyes. People were a little baffled by the choice, it's true, but I've never had such a simple decision as a director.You and Heath evidently had lots of conversations about shaping the character.
He'd call me from time to time, just to talk about what he was doing. And frankly, it was pretty hard to relate to on the other end of the phone—when he'd talk about looking at ventriloquist dummies and the way their mouths moved, the way the voice would sound as if it's disembodied.When you heard him talk about ventriloquist dummies, did you think, "Where the heck is he going with this?"
[Laughs] Well, as a director, you say, "OK, that's kind of frightening." But what you're also hearing in the actor's voice is passion and intensity.You've said that when you see the Joker, you can almost imagine what he smells like.
Yeah, you feel like there's a grime to him. I showed Heath some Francis Bacon paintings, which have a particular smudged, smeared effect that I thought was very evocative of human decay and corruption.To me, the most unsettling part of his performance is that tic where he licks his lips.
Yeah, it's almost like this lizard thing. It's very insidious, very creepy. Well, as with a lot of things that Heath would do, at first I thought it was a mistake. Because the prosthetics on his mouth would come a little unstuck. But then it became apparent that he'd really found something.There are a few lines in the movie that—unintentionally, of course—conjure thoughts of Heath's death. They are just odd, small coincidences in the dialogue. Is there anything a director can do about that?
I think that the key thing about Heath's performance, as it relates to the tragedy, is that it is so utterly unlike what he was in real life. And I think that makes it much easier to watch it and enjoy the performance as he intended it.

January 26, 2008 - NewsweekCharisma as Natural as GravityOne night, as I'm standing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, trying to line up a shot for "The Dark Knight," a production assistant skateboards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full character makeup. I'd fretted about the reaction of Batman fans to a skateboarding Joker, but the actual result was a proliferation of skateboards among the younger crew members. If you'd asked those kids why they had chosen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered honestly that they didn't know. That's real charisma—as invisible and natural as gravity. That's what Heath had.Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.One time he and another actor were shooting a complex scene. We had two days to shoot it, and at the end of the first day, they'd really found something and Heath was worried that he might not have it if we stopped. He wanted to carry on and finish. It's tough to ask the crew to work late when we all know there's plenty of time to finish the next day. But everyone seemed to understand that Heath had something special and that we had to capture it before it disappeared. Months later, I learned that as Heath left the set that night, he quietly thanked each crew member for working late. Quietly. Not trying to make a point, just grateful for the chance to create that they'd given him.Those nights on the streets of Chicago were filled with stunts. These can be boring times for an actor, but Heath was fascinated, eagerly accepting our invitation to ride in the camera car as we chased vehicles through movie traffic—not just for the thrill ride, but to be a part of it. Of everything. He'd brought his laptop along in the car, and we had a high-speed screening of two of his works-in-progress: short films he'd made that were exciting and haunting. Their exuberance made me feel jaded and leaden. I've never felt as old as I did watching Heath explore his talents. That night I made him an offer—knowing he wouldn't take me up on it—that he should feel free to come by the set when he had a night off so he could see what we were up to.When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we'd have to show him the finished film—sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we'd done with all that he'd given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.Back on LaSalle Street, I turn to my assistant director and I tell him to clear the skateboarding kid out of my line of sight when I realize—it's Heath, woolly hat pulled low over his eyes, here on his night off to take me up on my offer. I can't help but smile.

December 4, 2012 - Verbicide Magazine

Let’s talk about The Joker. I know you said Christian Bale was your first choice for the role of Batman; how did you come to choose Heath Ledger to play The Joker in now what has become probably the most talked-about performance in recent American movies?
Really, in a sense, he chose me. I had met with him about a couple of films; I had actually met him in relation to Batman Begins as well. I really thought he was a great actor, and he graciously came and met me for a drink to explain why he would never really do this kind of movie. He was very polite about it; he was a very lovely guy. I thought it’s a shame I can’t convince you, but this is what we are trying to do with this film, it’s a bit different really.I think when he saw Batman Begins he understood the things I said about doing it differently and felt that I had done it. So I met with him for The Joker and really I didn’t know if it was something he would be interested in. I wasn’t sure if I felt he was right for it. I think he’s a fantastic actor, but you never knew what kind of different take someone else would have on a character. So I chatted with him for a couple of hours in my office about who the character was going to be — we didn’t have a script at that point — but we knew who he was, and where he was going to go, and it was very much what Heath had in mind, and he was very determined to get it down. The way he explained it to me was he didn’t like to really work too much. He liked to do a character and then stop working, and then let enough time go by that he really needed to work again. He wanted to be hungry, and when he came to set, you can see how hungry he was to get it down.You spoke about how Heath had a similar view of The Joker as you and the writers, but when did you first see him do The Joker, sort of full blast? Did you have rehearsals or talk about the voice or the ticks, because it’s certainly an extraordinarily well-developed character.
It is. We cast him before the script was even written. Heath spent months and months obsessing about what he would do. I sent him some materials; I had him read A Clockwork Orange — well, I had him go through both the book and the film. I had him look at the works of Frances Bacon, a lot of different tangential things to get into it. Then, once he had the script — which was a very scary moment, when he actually got to read it, because by this time he was so committed and…if he didn’t like it, it would have been extremely difficult — he breathed a sigh of relief, I breathed a sigh of relief. He really felt it hit what we had talked about.So we talked about doing a costume fitting and all this. Like a lot of artists, he would sneak up on something. So he wouldn’t sit there and say, “Okay, now I’m going to be The Joker.” You have to sort of say, “Let’s just read this scene, you don’t have to act it, just read it,” and then he’d read it with Christian and then you’d hear a line or two where he was doing something different with his voice, nothing too intricate. Then we would film hair and makeup tests — we tried different looks with different make up, and that started to move. Then we brought in rubber knives, and he would start to move around and choose what weapon he would have. We would film with handheld cameras so they weren’t so stiff. We would circle around, and he would do his thing and explore his movement. We weren’t recording sound, so he would start talking and showing us what he would do, and that way he sort of sneaked up on it.It was, as with any great performance, showing us something different. The voice certainly frightened me at first because of its weird shift in pitch. What I came to realize [is that] he figured out this whole thing based on the Alexander Technique, which I’m not familiar with, but the principle is if you hit a high note, you’re immediately able to hit the two octaves below — it’s a way of lowering your voice. So we have this character where you never quite know which way the pitch is going to go — just as in his physical movements you just never know how he’s going to move. It’s always a surprise, the actual tone of his voice was always a surprise; sometimes it would go very low and incredibly threatening, and other times it would be almost like a sing-song, almost light in a way.The first time I really saw it all together was in the interrogation scene. That was first scene we shot with The Joker because I wanted to make him really commit to something up front. Well, the first sequence we actually shot was the IMAX prologue, which was the bank robbery, where he has the mask on. I just really wanted him to enjoy that and not worry about too much. You see his character in that scene is like Buster Keaton or like Chaplin, it’s just a magical character through every gesture; I just loved what he did there. Then there is the moment where he pulls his mask off, which was tremendous, but it was the first time we shot with the IMAX camera, and when we looked at the dailies it was all a bit out of focus. So I rescheduled it, and I got this horrified phone call from him saying, “What have I done wrong?” This was the first time he really showed us the voice and what he was going to do, and we want to re-shoot it. I told him no, it was great, but I don’t think he ever quite believed me, actually.He re-shot it very graciously because he was a tremendous professional, but in the end we actually used the out-of-focus one because it was magic, it just had that little thing. The first thing we really did shoot on the real schedule though was the interrogation scene, and we took our time shooting it and he was very grateful. We shot it in England with this very gruff British crew. They had all worked with Jack Nicholson and thought, He’s the only Joker. They didn’t quote know who this guy was and what he was doing, [but] afterwards they all looked at him differently…it was a great thing for him.When you’re doing a scene like that, it starts with dialogue and then moves into physical action — does that change the way you approach it with the actors in terms of the number of takes you do or the amount of rehearsal at full blast, as it were, due to the physical exhaustion factor in tandem with what they have to do emotionally?
Yeah, another reason we did this scene early on was because the stuff we shoot at the beginning of the schedule, we tend to have more time with. You give yourself more time for it, [but] over several months of shooting a film you get pushed for time. So we gave ourselves a couple of days and split it into sections — quite specifically in the interrogation scene, everything in the dialogue is done with a dolly, and then it goes to handheld. That becomes a different style of shooting. It’s consistent and we want it to be consistent, but you try to break it into those sections because, yeah, once you start really going for it, it’s incredibly draining. [Not just] the physicality, but also the performance — the intensity of the scene, they were just exhausted by the end of it.While Heath’s manipulation of the situation is really fun to watch, what’s also very important in the scene to me is that Christian really wanted to hold on to the idea: at what point would it be too far to go with that character’s approach to justice? What does it mean if he loses control and takes things personally? It’s the sort of thing we toyed around with a bit in Batman Begins, but I didn’t have the story move well enough to push it, in terms of the inner anger of the character. Now we have a scene where you really see him out of control and edgy, while seeing [that despite] all of his strength and all his training…[he] has obvious limitations, and he’s sort of confronted with that.That required a huge amount of energy on Christian’s part. Also, with the punches, I’ve never seen something so beautifully choreographed where every take was usable. You just put a sound effect on it and they all look like a devastating blow. It’s a very intense scene, but there’s no blood in it — partly because of the red makeup and everything, it sort of stands in for the blood, so we were able to make a great PG-13 version of it, but I really felt strongly that it should be an uncomfortable scene. You want to be at this point where you’re really unsure of what you want Batman to be doing.

I know you are loath to talk about Heath, for understandable reasons, but there's no avoiding the fact that when you watch the movie, his performance is so exciting that it's the first thing you want to talk about.
Yeah, I know. I've been waiting all this time for everyone to see it, and working very hard not to screw it up.What about Heath made you cast him?
I'd met Heath a couple times over the years about different projects, but nothing ever worked out. One time he gave me a speech that a lot of young actors have given me, where they basically say that they haven't achieved, as serious actors, what they want to before they're pushed into being movie stars. And of all the actors who've given me that speech, he's the only one that I would actually want to pay $10 to see give that kind of performance. And he did it in "Brokeback Mountain." The stunning lack of vanity, the sheer loneliness of that character—it's a staggering performance. So when I heard he was interested in the Joker, there was never any doubt. You could just see it in his eyes. People were a little baffled by the choice, it's true, but I've never had such a simple decision as a director.You and Heath evidently had lots of conversations about shaping the character.
He'd call me from time to time, just to talk about what he was doing. And frankly, it was pretty hard to relate to on the other end of the phone—when he'd talk about looking at ventriloquist dummies and the way their mouths moved, the way the voice would sound as if it's disembodied.When you heard him talk about ventriloquist dummies, did you think, "Where the heck is he going with this?"
[Laughs] Well, as a director, you say, "OK, that's kind of frightening." But what you're also hearing in the actor's voice is passion and intensity.You've said that when you see the Joker, you can almost imagine what he smells like.
Yeah, you feel like there's a grime to him. I showed Heath some Francis Bacon paintings, which have a particular smudged, smeared effect that I thought was very evocative of human decay and corruption.To me, the most unsettling part of his performance is that tic where he licks his lips.
Yeah, it's almost like this lizard thing. It's very insidious, very creepy. Well, as with a lot of things that Heath would do, at first I thought it was a mistake. Because the prosthetics on his mouth would come a little unstuck. But then it became apparent that he'd really found something.There are a few lines in the movie that—unintentionally, of course—conjure thoughts of Heath's death. They are just odd, small coincidences in the dialogue. Is there anything a director can do about that?
I think that the key thing about Heath's performance, as it relates to the tragedy, is that it is so utterly unlike what he was in real life. And I think that makes it much easier to watch it and enjoy the performance as he intended it.

January 26, 2008 - NewsweekCharisma as Natural as GravityOne night, as I'm standing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, trying to line up a shot for "The Dark Knight," a production assistant skateboards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full character makeup. I'd fretted about the reaction of Batman fans to a skateboarding Joker, but the actual result was a proliferation of skateboards among the younger crew members. If you'd asked those kids why they had chosen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered honestly that they didn't know. That's real charisma—as invisible and natural as gravity. That's what Heath had.Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.One time he and another actor were shooting a complex scene. We had two days to shoot it, and at the end of the first day, they'd really found something and Heath was worried that he might not have it if we stopped. He wanted to carry on and finish. It's tough to ask the crew to work late when we all know there's plenty of time to finish the next day. But everyone seemed to understand that Heath had something special and that we had to capture it before it disappeared. Months later, I learned that as Heath left the set that night, he quietly thanked each crew member for working late. Quietly. Not trying to make a point, just grateful for the chance to create that they'd given him.Those nights on the streets of Chicago were filled with stunts. These can be boring times for an actor, but Heath was fascinated, eagerly accepting our invitation to ride in the camera car as we chased vehicles through movie traffic—not just for the thrill ride, but to be a part of it. Of everything. He'd brought his laptop along in the car, and we had a high-speed screening of two of his works-in-progress: short films he'd made that were exciting and haunting. Their exuberance made me feel jaded and leaden. I've never felt as old as I did watching Heath explore his talents. That night I made him an offer—knowing he wouldn't take me up on it—that he should feel free to come by the set when he had a night off so he could see what we were up to.When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we'd have to show him the finished film—sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we'd done with all that he'd given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.Back on LaSalle Street, I turn to my assistant director and I tell him to clear the skateboarding kid out of my line of sight when I realize—it's Heath, woolly hat pulled low over his eyes, here on his night off to take me up on my offer. I can't help but smile.

Heath Ledger Interviews

September 8, 2006 - AP, Toronto

What's next? Ledger says he's getting ready for what could be one of the biggest roles of his career. He plays the Joker in the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight:"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve".

September 8, 2006 - Toronto Sun, by Jim Slotek

Come January, he starts playing the Joker in Christopher Nolan's next Batman film, The Dark Knight."It's definitely going to stump people. I think it'll be more along the lines of how the Joker was meant to be in the comics, darker and more sinister".

September 8, 2006 - Toronto Star, by Peter Howell

How about playing the Joker in The Dark Knight? I have to admit, I would never have thought of you for the role.I wouldn't have thought of me, either. But it's obviously not going to be what Jack Nicholson did. It's going to be more nuanced and dark and more along the lines of A Clockwork Orange kind of feel. Which is, I think, what the comic book was after: less about his laugh and more about his eyes.

September 8, 2006 - Dark Horizons, by Paul Fischer

Ledger says, recalling the awards season and the lead up to the Oscars. But he also admits almost shyly, that his nomination has opened up even more doors. “I think there’s a new level of interest kind of thing but I haven’t really acted on it, since the only thing I’ve really done since is this Todd Haynes film and The Joker.”It is his decision to play The Joker in the new Batman film The Dark Knight that has caused much interest in the industry. He says that ordinarily doing something like that would not be of interest to him. “I actually hate comic book movies, like fucking hate them, they just bore me shitless and they’re just dumb. But I thought what Chris Nolan did with Batman was actually really good, really well directed, and Christian Bale was really great in it.”Ledger says he’s looking forward to playing a truly evil character. “He’s going to be really sinister and it’s going to be less about his laugh and his pranks and more about just him being a just a fucking sinister guy.” Asked if he decides to do a big movie like this, because of agent pressure, Ledger pauses then laughs. “I’m sure they’re super happy that I’m doing this, because this is the first time I’ve really kind of taken something like that, so they’re over the moon. But I think it’s just going to be a really fun experience, and I love to dress up and wear a mask.” No costumes have been designed, but the actor says that “I’ve seen a few interesting designs on the look and I think that it’s going to look pretty cool.”

September 8, 2006 - MSN Movies

It's Ledger's next role as Batman's nemesis The Joker in Chris Nolan's "The Dark Knight" that has fanboys' tongues wagging. Ledger says he hasn't paid attention to the scuttlebutt on the Web about his casting and wasn't that surprised to get the offer from Nolan."When he explained to me the angle he wanted to take, I was like, 'Yeah, I could do that,'" Ledger says. "[Nolan's] going to make it a lot more sinister, and we've got a little plan for him, but it's exciting. Any opportunity to don a mask is always exciting to me."The first "Batman" picture was dominated by Jack Nicholson's acclaimed performance as the psychotic villain, but Ledger isn't intimidated by his predecessor's turn."I love, love, love what Nicholson did," Ledger says. "[But] his performance was catering to the style of directing the movie was made under. It was a Tim Burton film. It wasn't Chris Nolan."

September 19, 2006 - Berlin XM sat radio show

On getting the coveted role of the Joker:You have to remember I watched those films as a boy, and me and my mates used to play Batman in the streets, so I kind of had a knowledge of the characters and the mythos. I’ve wanted to do something that could cement me, and after viewing Batman Begins I was interested in working with Nolan.When I was contacted, I was not super keen on the idea, but after learning about the things they wanted to do, I became very interested in the Joker. It’s an actor’s dream to play an iconic role, and the Joker is so far removed from anything I’ve done yet that I am looking forward to it and to the ideas that were presented to me...On what kind of Joker character angle we can expect to see:Well, this is just in the infant stages right now, but I receive character data from the writers on an almost weekly basis; my fax is loaded with profiles on the Joker to give me an idea of what they are going to do.I’ve also been given some of the comic book material to look over, and I just become more and more interested as it develops. To play a villain, one must throw it all out the window, and I have not yet really explored that kind of dark side, which makes me enthusiastic to play him.This role, I am told, will be like watching a car wreck that won’t stop, and from the script pieces I’ve been sent about my character, it just gets deeper and deeper. This guy is a shark, a fearless shark, and I know I can bring that to life...On what the Joker will look like:That is my question as well. I suppose he will look like me, but I’ve been told that they are still in preliminary stages, and I’ve seen no ideas yet. I’ve been told it will be the Joker and that the iconic look will stay true. I hope it is...On working with Christian Bale:Christian is actually in this film I am doing now on Bob Dylan, so I’ve met him a few times. He is excited as well, and that has galvanized me to do it too. He had a lot to do with them contacting me.Right now we are focused on this film, but once we get to Warner, it will be all Dark Knight...On the fans who don’t like him:This kind of thing affects me zero. It would not matter who is chosen to play the character in any film; there is always someone who does not like you, and I am secure in my choices and my record. And if I must say anything directly to them, it is that I am going to do the best possible work I can do as an actor.But I know at the end of the day you are never going to please everyone 100 percent. As an entertainer, I choose what I want to do based on where I want to go. I am an actor, and it’s my job to do this.But it’s a dream. I am grateful for getting the role, and I have to say I will do whatever it takes to make it the best possible product I can.On Jack Nicholson’s Joker:That was a film I watched with my mates coming up. To say it was a great film would be an understatement. I loved and was scared of the Joker in that film, so it’s very inspiring that I’ll be in those shoes, but at the same time what we are going to have to do is something never done before. That was one of my requirements.I refused to carbon-copy a performance. That would not be a challenge, and it would be mocking Mr. Nicholson, whom I have much respect for...On what it will feel like to be an action figure:I’ve always thought that would be the point where I really made it. I mean, I am an action-packed guy, so making a toy for me is OK with my mates...

November 7, 2006 (or December 5, 2006) - San Jose Mercury News, by Mark de la Viña

I've read also that you're, in terms of the role, you're sort of thinking of it more along the lines of A Clockwork Orange and how you're planning on playing the Joker. Is that correct?Uh, I mean, I think I kind of mentioned that, that there was a—just in terms of just the level of, kind of, you know, like, how sinister he's gonna be kinda thing, really.
It's certainly not going to be based on him, you know.
You know, we're not basing it off Clockwork Orange.But I think I was referring to it a while back just in terms of the level of kind of, you know... um, you know, he's like, he's a pure anarchist and just how sinister he's gonna be and dark.It's so early days, you know. It's so premature for me to kinda be trying to explain what I'm gonna do, cause I really have no idea, probably.
Well, I do. I guess I'll be alright, so yeah (laughs).After talking about being very selective about certain roles, it kinda seems like a big role for you that might run counter to the way you've been thinking in the past, or is that not the case?Um, I don't know. I still feel like he's a—you know, it's a character I've never done before and it's gonna be donning a mask, and I love, like, performing from beyond the mask and, and so, you know, I'm super excited about it.I'm not, I'm not really thinking about the commercial consequences—or, yeah, maybe I should be. Um, but at this point, it's just an exciting next step.

November 7, 2006 - 'Candy' press roundtable (W Hotel, Manhattan, New York), by Jameson Kowalczyk (IONCINEMA), Brad Balfour (Blackfilm), Latino Review, Daniel Robert Epstein (Newsarama.com), Scott Collura (IGN)

Heath Ledger isn't very scary in person. In fact, he's a soft-spoken sort who at times seems almost intimidated by the gaggle of reporters who surround him at press events. Still, the Brokeback Mountain star is set to play the potentially very scary role of the Joker in the soon-to-be-shooting Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight. We caught up with Ledger earlier today in Manhattan, where he's promoting his new film Candy. And, of course, we lobbed the Joker questions at him like Batman would lob batarangs at his arch foe. For starters, the actor explained that he does not plan on taking inspiration from the Jack Nicholson version of the character from the original Batman film - and neither is he anxious at the prospect of following in Nicholson's shoes.Is doing the role of The Joker scary after Jack Nicholson did it so well?"If he was drowning in a pool it would be [scary]," the actor cheekily says. "I’m obviously not going for the same thing he went for. That would just be stupid, ans it's also two very different styles of directors and filmmaking. Tim Burton did a more fantastical kind of thing and Chris Nolan is doing nitty-gritty kind of handheld realism thing. I love what he [Nicholson] did and it is part of why I want to do it, and I remember seeing Batman and thinking how much fun it would be to put on that mask and to attempt to do something along those lines. But it would obviously just be murder if I tried to imitate what he did and pointless to the project".Have you met with Chris or Christian or have you just formulated what you want to do independently?At this point it’s just solo. Chris Nolan’s still busy, or he was busy, with The Prestige, and they’re still writing the script. They’re so safe-guarded, even with me, I don’t have a script. I read it, once, at Chris Nolan’s house, but he wouldn’t let me leave with it [laughs].They’re talking about bringing in the co-creator of The Joker, Jerry Robinson, as a consultant on The Dark Knight. I don’t know if it would be more of an honorary title.It probably is [laughs].Have you started to think about how you will play The Joker?Yeah. You know, I want it to be a very sinister kind of thing. It’s so early that I’m trying to leave it open at this point and I don’t want to be glued down to any one idea. I’ve been kind of trying to delay my commitment to the preparation process on that because I’m just trying to extend my holiday time. I definitely have an image in my head and I definitely have something up my sleeve.What’s next for you?Well the next thing is playing The Joker, next year.Have you read many Batman comics?No and I think that’s kind of helping me a little bit, the fact that I was never really a fan of, I didn't exactly despise comic books or comic book movies but I was never really one to read them that much. I never sought out the films too often but I would enjoy them if I sat down and watched them. So because of that I really feel that I’m not carrying as much pressure.Have they given or asked you to read certain comics?The Killing Joke is the one that was handed to me. It's really good. So I think [the film] is obviously going to be a bit [about] the beginning of The Joker. I guess [The Killing Joke] explains a little bit of where he’s from, but not too much. From what I’ve gathered, there isn’t a lot of information about The Joker and it’s kind of left that way.What motivated you to take on the role of the Joker? Were you familiar with or a fan of the character?I guess if I was a fan of a comic book character it would probably be the Joker. The offer motivated me [laughing] to take it, the opportunity to play this guy. I, somewhere inside, I kind of knew instantly what to do with it. I didn’t feel like I had to search for it. I felt like I had a plan of attack already, so that usually dictates whether I want to do something or not, if I have an understanding of it straightaway.The soon-to-be Clown Prince of Crime can't comment on any of the technical details of the film yet, as he doesn't know what his character will look like or how closely the film will hew to the Joker of the comic books in terms of visuals. But Ledger does say that he's already been introduced to the very thorough and detailed technical side of making a film like The Dark Knight.Have you done screen tests with The Joker makeup yet?No, but I did do 3-D kind of image-scan kind of thing, but I don’t know what they’re doing with it or where they're taking it (laughs). I had this like Bat-truck turned up at my house in LA. It was just this massive truck and inside it had all these gadgets and all these cameras that zoom around you up and down, and it instantly projects a three-dimensional image of you. I’ve never used anything high-tech like that before in a film, and I felt like I was in the back of the Knight Rider truck or something!As for the question of why he's playing a super-villain while most of his fellow Hollywood leading men are looking to play superheroes, Ledger explains that he has an edict fanboys have come to know as "no flights, no tights."Have you ever wanted to do superhero movies before?Not really. It's just the tights and undies that I have a problem with, and the boots", he smiles. "I would just feel stupid and silly. I couldn’t pull it off and there are other people who can perfectly, but I just couldn’t take myself seriously. And I feel like this is an opportunity for me to not take myself too seriously, and for some reason I just gravitated towards [the Joker] and I knew I had something to give to him. And I just instantly had an idea of how to do it.

November 7, 2006 - New York Daily News, by Joe Neumaier

He'll be seen in Todd Haynes' upcoming "I'm Not There," and he's starting to perfect his cackle for his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," director Christopher Nolan's followup to 2005's "Batman Begins." Christian Bale will again be the Caped Crusader.The Joker was last played onscreen by Jack Nicholson in 1989's "Batman," but Ledger isn't white-faced when he considers the challenge."I think [getting the role] was tougher for other people to comprehend than it was for me," Ledger says, giving a crooked grin as he smokes out a window. "I'm looking forward to it. A part of me feels like I've been warming up to [playing the Joker] for years. In 'The Brothers Grimm,' [director] Terry Gilliam helped me put on a sort of clown act and adjust to that sort of pace. And I feel it's something within me I know how to do. I like putting on a mask. It'll be dark and sinister and exciting."Not being a huge comic book fan, and not one to really follow comic book movies, I'm relaxed about it," he adds. "The kids in the neighborhood are on to me, though."

December 15, 2006 - SLTToday.com, by Joe Williams

[on Candy] Those who do listen will hear something they may not have heard before in a Heath Ledger film: his Australian accent. [...] For his vocal chords, it was a short-lived respite. Soon he'll play the Joker in "The Dark Knight," the new Batman movie."The Joker", he says, "is definitely an American".

24 August 2007 - _The Dark Knight Chicago set visit, press roundtable with Empire Magazine, Lynley Dwight (FHP), Staci Layne Wilson, (Horror.com), Carlos Gómez Iniesta (Cine PREMIERE México), and (likely) more.

When on-set to see some of the filming for The Dark Knight in Chicago, actor Heath Ledger, who was portraying the villain The Joker, was noted tired and looking a little ragged around the edges. He talked about his serious approach to The Joker for a few minutes. He reiterated that he had put a lot of effort into the foundation of the character, and he took it extremely seriously.
He granted an interview with a group of journalists visiting the set. Ledger, yawning and fidgeting throughout the roundtable-style interview explained his initial approach to the character, and how he found his inner Joker.I just got off a plane. I was picked up at 4am from my house this morning in LA. It’s okay (he says, a little sleepy, as he takes his seat).Good, that way you’ll be disoriented enough to spill everything…Completely disoriented, but I’m recovering now.Are you lucid enough to tell all?(Laughs) You caught me at a good moment.Everyone says that you are kind of fearless about taking on this role, is that really true?I definitely feared it (tells quietly, with a half-apologetic smile). Anything that fears me, I guess, excites me at the same time and, so yeah. I don’t know if I was fearless, but I certainly had to put on a brave face and believe that I had something up my sleeve and something that was different.Did you ever watch Jack Nicholson’s version of the Joker?Oh yeah, yeah (laughs). I mean, not after I got the role, but I’ve seen it many times before. I was a huge fan of it and, but, you know, having seen Chris’s first film, I knew that there was a big difference between a Chris Nolan film and a Tim Burton film. And so therefore there was enough room for a fresh portrayal. And so I’ve kind of steered away from what Jack did (laughs), hopefully.In what way?I don’t know. I’m not at liberty to say.Do we see the man behind The Joker? Will it have something to do with acid, for instance?I don’t know. (laughs) I really don’t know what to say, I feel like I’ll be assassinated if I tell you something wrong…We know there’s a prologue, but we don’t know exactly what is in that.OK, I’m really not sure what I’m allowed to say (laughs)About the process of getting into the Joker, there is the idea that he may have once been a normal person. Unlike say, Jack’s Joker was.Yeah, I think most of the villains in kind of the Chris Nolan style of Batman movies are normal people, once were normal people. I definitely kind of came to my own conclusions to his background, but one thing... (hesitates). I think I'd better shut my mouth (laughs).
I don’t know whether I’d be putting my foot in my mouth by giving you that much, I guess it’s my secret too at this point. So, I don’t know if this is the first time I’d had to speak about it. And no one's really prepped me, on what I can say or not (laughs).How long does your makeup take?An hour and a half kinda thing. It’s pretty quick. They come up with a new technology for the mouthpiece, the scars are made out of silicone, not prosthetic, and so they have three silicon stamps that they put on here, here and here, the whole bottom lip is fake essentially, and they glue it on in here and so yeah, it takes like half an hour to put those on and then twenty minutes, half an hour to paint the face.Has your daughter seen you as The Joker?No, no. I think she’s seen like an image of it but…Was she scared?She just kind of frowned at it, you know (laughs). I don’t think she connected me to it, yeah.How did you build your character? Did you start with the comic books or the movies or the TV series?A bit of both. Like I sat around a hotel room in London, for about a month and I just locked myself away and formed a little diary and experimented with voices and all kind of (he trailed off, rethinking his answer). I’ll answer your question (laughs). He’s, you know, I ended up making him within the realm of a psychopath, kind of like zero empathy, or very little to no conscience towards his acts, which is fun because there’s no real limits on their boundaries to what he would say or how he would say something, or what he would do.
Nothing Intimidates him, and everything is a big joke. So, yeah that, I don’t know it’s always a very personal process in terms of how you land in your characters shoes, so to speak, It’s a combination of reading all the comic books I could and the script, and then just really closing my eyes and meditating on it. Chris and I very much see eye to eye on how the character should be played, and that was evident from the first kind of meeting we had on the project. We both had identical images in our minds and so I went away, found it, came back.So does that really help with the character? You got a costume in there as well and the whole feel, look… (the Joker shoes were just nearby for reference. The Joker's costume set up on headless mannequin augmented by a few stills from the film)Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely the icing on the cake toward all the research that you do prior to shooting for sure. And there is something about, you know, the metaphor to work behind the mask and from within a mask. It always gives you the license to do whatever you want for the freedom, free of feeling like you’re being judged or viewed, and so I’m literally wearing a mask now which empowers me twice as much to kind of feel free, and feel unrestrained, yeah, and it’s pretty exciting.How did you get into this evil character?I don't know, I think we all have it in us, you know. I don’t know, once again, it’s kind of, you know, like for awhile there, I was thinking that sometimes I’ll connect some exterior thoughts, I’m kind of eating raw meat and what that does to your mouth and to your eyes, and simple little visuals like that, that can kind of twist your mind a little bit, and it feels evil when it’s not necessarily an evil thought, but it may look and come across as evil. And, I don’t know, I guess the rest is just trusting like, your research and trusting all the definitions of these words, a psychopath and, you know, and then just running with it. You know? I don’t know, I’m trying not to give it too much thought at this point and…Nicholson said the first time he saw himself as The Joker he forgot his lines. Was there a moment you looked at your performance and felt a certain way?I haven’t looked at it yet. I’ve heard it, in the trailer and it kinda creeped me out a little bit but I haven’t seen it yet.Why? Why haven’t you seen it?I just, I don’t know where I’d see it. We don’t have playback, I don’t want to see playback, and I just, I haven’t seen, I don’t know if you’d, they’ve put together a trailer of some sort for…You never see dailies of the film?No. I did. I did. I used to. But now I just find it’s a waste of time (laughs). I’d rather go home, go to sleep (laughs)… it’s too late.Is that because you found you were readjusting your performance when you were doing that?Sometimes, yeah, sometimes. I mean, just out of insecurities I used to do it, and schooling, self tutored.How is his physicality? He must be much more physical than the last one? He’s younger etc. And Christian Bale is a very physical actor and very athletic.Christian’s beaten me up a couple of times (laughs), through the film. (laughs) He actually punched me in the jaw at one point!Yeah?Yeah, not hard. He’s a total gentleman about it, but you know... He kind of tapped me on the shoulder and it’s been physical, but I enjoy that. I get battered and bruised, but I don’t know, I like feeling pain too (laughs), it’s kind of acting, in a way.And you found a way to walk etc?Definitely, I found an interesting kind of posture of sort, which I felt went with his aggressive nature, and a walk, and it’s hard to describe I guess, it’s a little hunched.Is this a role you had to go to the gym much?No. (laughs) Thank God, yeah.So that’s good.Yeah. (laughs)Can you talk about your scenes with Christian. You’re the nemesis you know, the iconic Batman nemesis there must be some electricity?Well, firstly, it’s an honor to work with Christian and I mean, the cast in general is pretty outstanding. I mean, every single one of these people I’ve wanted to work with and... have inspired me at some point. And so it’s ridiculous, like, the cast and my first scene was with Gary Oldman, which was mind blowing. And then after he leaves the interrogation room, Batman arrives (laughs), and, you know, and... suddenly, I realised what movie I was in (laughs), and it’s quite fun actually, because you know... I was supposed to, you know, nothing really gets under my skin, including Batman. And it’s quite easy, as an actor, because it’s kind of funny seeing someone dressed up in a bat suit, it was easy to laugh at it, but he’s incredibly professional and incredibly focused and, you know, one of the loveliest guys I’ve ever worked with, and a brilliant actor and... even down to Batman, like, how serious he takes it, and how he transforms, and his voice shifts... and how aggressive he gets. It’s really, really inspiring stuff.So the concept is that Batman uses fear and the Joker feels no fear of Batman. Is that part of the relationship?Sure, yeah, it's kind of, you know. They can’t really live without each other. It’s that kind of relationship. You know? Like they have no real purpose in life without each other. So they don’t really want each other dead.Now, how about working with Maggie Gyllenhaal? Obviously you worked with her brother (Jake) before, so did you know her from that?Yeah. Yeah I did. Yeah, that’s been great too. I stuck a knife (laughs) into her and… no, it’s been a lot of fun and you know, she’s also a Brooklynite and so we’ve just been kinda, trading a lot of family stories and yeah, it’s been fun.Could you describe what sets Chris Nolan apart from other directors, what his quality is like?He drinks a lot more tea than I’ve seen another director drink (laughs). That definitely sets him apart. He’s so young, but seems so old, and he’s just incredibly mature and organized and relaxed on set, and he’s definitely in his world. He has a wonderful relationship with his DP [Director of Photography], Wally (Pfister), and those two kind of seem to have the entire world mapped out. And we just kind of follow in their path. I couldn’t imagine what it’s like directing a movie this size, but he manages to kind of keep a clear head, and he’s super organized, he actually just, surprisingly enough, like, as organized as he is, he really just shoots as he goes too, like, he makes a lot of it up, as he goes, and he’s very flexible in that way.Since he's also the co-writer, did he involve you in any fine-tuning of the Joker's character?Me? No, not really. No he was all there, he was all on page. They did a really good job.He seems so serious, how do you know if he likes your performance?I guess when he laughs, you know, whenever he's not taking it too seriously, which is quite often. It's just the way he holds himself. He seems, like, this very old soul kind of guy, but he is youthful when he talks about his children, you know, kind of that... I guess.Everybody has been saying how dark the film is. Is there any moment of twisted fun that the Joker brings with him to the table?Yeah, yeah, all the time. Yeah. There’s nothing consistent about him at all, so he’s not consistently dark or consistently fun, or funny. He's just going up and down the whole time.Did you have fun in terms of playing it?Yeah, it’s the most fun I’ve had, playing a role.This is very different than your character in Brokeback Mountain, who is so restrained...Yeah, absolutely, I’m really surprised Chris knew that I could do it, or thought or believed that I had something in me like this. And I don’t know how he came to ask me to do it. But yeah, it is the bomb. It’s definitely the most fun I’ve had, and the most freedom I’ve had, and the work schedule’s great (laughs). I work two days and have three weeks off (laughs). It’s been like that for six months, so I went surfing a lot.But you do some work?Yeah, yeah, I do. It’s just a long schedule, and there’s a lot of action sequences, so action sequences take three weeks to a month sometimes to shoot.We understand these stunts are as real as possible, and there’s not much CGI. Any injuries or hairy moments?No. But I know Christian did want to do his own, he went and stood up on the Sears Tower himself. They took him right up to the very top, and he took his feet right to the edge and they put him on a thin wire, and he just leaned off the tower like this (demonstrating). Which I thought was a pretty cool story. There’s been a lot of car chases, and there was an IMAX camera that got busted up, got jammed between a truck and a car and, they just, you know, they just replaced it (laughs), and kept on shooting, as you do.Is this the most expensive movie you’ve ever made?Yeah, definitely.Does it have an influence on the whole?On my performance?Yeah, is it different from doing something that’s an indie?Yeah, it’s completely different. It doesn’t really change that space of time between action and cut, that’s always the same no matter what’s around you. It’s the same place you live in, but yet it’s a different ball game, it’s quite amazing, it’s quite jaw dropping. Yeah, it’s fun, it’s been really a lot of fun watching it.Why is your clown posse so scary?It’s good that they’re silent but deadly.Besides being a masked guy, what does he have? a car? Something special?The Jokermobile? (laughs) Rollerblades, yeah (laughs), that would be funny. No he doesn’t have a set of wheels, he just steals whatever’s around.He has that image of someone who has that flower that squirts acid, that sort of thing?No, not a lot of gimmicks.Just you and a knife?He’s just bloody, yeah.It’s a gory one?I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a PG-13 isn’t it? I think so not really, you know, I think it suggests more gore. I remember going into this thinking it was PG-13 but I wanted to present... a kind of X rated performance, if I could. So, it’s kind of what I’ve been going for, and the power of suggestion... is pretty... dark. But there’s not a lot of gore.Have you run into Jack Nicholson since you got the part?Oh, I wish (laughs). I’ve never run into him but I’d like to. Not literally, but...Is this your first movie playing the bad guy? Would you play more antagonistic characters?Of course! I like it.Would you come back for another Batman?If they invite me, of course.

September 4, 2007 - Aftonbladet, by Jens Peterson

The Joker is the most fun I’ve ever had with any character. He’s evil and it’s bloody. And there are fantastic actors. On the first day I worked with Gary Oldman, one of my great idols.

September 4, 2007 - AlloCiné

The Joker so far is definitely the most fun I've had with any character. He's just out of control. He has no empathy. He's a sociopath, psychotic, mass murdering clown. And I'm just thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying it. Like, it's exceeded any expectations I've had in terms of what the experience would be like. So it'll be interesting.

September 4, 2007 - Le Soir, by Nicolas Crousse

And there are other major roles waiting for you. Like the Joker in the next Batman. Isn’t it difficult to take over a role previously held by someone like Jack Nicholson?It’s always difficult. I usually say yes to good offers. Then, a week later, I start having doubts. That’s the actor’s routine. Jack Nicholson is so brilliant, of course. But I’m not afraid in this case, because I’m going in a very different direction. I’m having more fun than ever with the Joker.

September 4, 2007 - Marie Claire UK

You're now playing the Joker in the forthcoming Batman film The Dark Knight. Were you worried about doing a huge blockbuster from the Hollywood machine?It's definitely a machine and you really feel it when you're on set. The awareness of it is creepy. But I could not turn down this character. I really enjoy working behind a mask and I'm actually working behind a mask. It's sinister and psychotic and he's bloodthirsty. It's just twisted and I've really enjoyed it.

late October, 2007 - The New York Times, Sarah Lyall

I interviewed him right before the Dark Knight was wrapping. I think he was in his last couple of months of filming:He is here in London filming the latest episode of the “Batman” franchise, “The Dark Knight.” (Mr. Bale, as it happens, plays Batman; Mr. Ledger plays the Joker.) It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully.He carries his interests around with him, and his kitchen table was awash in objects: a chess set, assorted books, various empty glasses, items of clothing. Here too was his Joker diary, which he began compiling four months before filming began. It is filled with images and thoughts helpful to the Joker back story, like a list of things the Joker would find funny. (AIDS is one of them.) Mr. Ledger seemed almost embarrassed that the book had been spotted, as if he had been caught trying to get extra credit in school.

November 10, 2007 - The Georgia Straight, by Ian Caddell

He says that it's never going to be easy to take on a role that comes with certain expectations from the audience. "When you are playing these kinds of parts, you can underprepare or you can overprepare, but it is all just to feed our superstitious needs and to comfort ourselves. I was a fan of Dylan, but he was someone who I had scheduled somewhere down the line to be obsessed with because I do get obsessed with musicians and artists. So I think [director] Todd Haynes prematurely invited me into this film. The Joker was different in that I was definitely a fan of what Jack Nicholson had done and the world Tim [Burton] created. I think that if he [Burton] was directing The Dark Knight and asked me to play the Joker, I would say, 'No, I couldn't.' The reason why I confidently stepped into his [the Joker's] shoes is that I had seen [ Dark Knight director Chris Nolan's] Batman Begins and I knew the world that he had created and I knew there was a different angle to be taken with the Joker."

November 10, 2007 - IESB.net, by Silas Lesnick

You're going right from I'm Not There where you have to put your spin on a character set up by other actors and right into Batman where the Joker has been done by not only Jack Nicholson but Cesar Romero, etc as well as the comics. Does it compare at all?I really don't know. It's like chalk and cheese. My preparation process for this and my process for the Joker are completely different. I mean, for the Joker I locked myself away in a hotel room for six weeks. I just formulated a voice and a posture and found a real psychology behind the Joker. I really put a lot of work into it. And the experience also on a production scale, by the way, is obviously a completely different shoot. Batman is just such a machine. It's huge and I've never worked on anything that big. And the movie is going to be surprisingly good! It's far exceeded my expectations.Were there any specific comics you based your version off of?Well, The Killing Joke is the one that's being passed around and Arkham Asylum kind of. But I really tried to read the comics and put it down. You know, I was a big fan of Jack Nicholson - still am - his portrayal of the Joker was perfect for Tim Burton's world and if Tim Burton had come to me and he was doing the sequel and he asked me to play the Joker in his movie, I wouldn't do it. I couldn't. Because you couldn't touch what Jack Nicholson did. It would be a crime. When Chris came to me, I'd already seen Batman Begins and I really liked it. Because I'd already seen it, I already knew the world, which he had created. I instantly knew of an angle. I instantly knew a way into this character. A way to create a character to fit into this world and so it was fairly immediate. I've got straight away the fact that we're both on the same page in terms of where we want it to be. But I guess we have to wait and see. I haven't seen any of it yet.

November 10, 2007 - MTV, by Josh Horowitz

I've heard you're doing this little film called The Dark Knight...Done.The Joker. Something about that... I talked to Michael Caine recently, and he said nothing less than that you've created one of the scariest characters he's ever seen. Is that kind of one of the primary goals when you tackle the character? Just to scare the crap out of people next summer?It was one of the goals, yeah. There are a few more surprises to him, which I don't know what I'm allowed to say, like, I feel it's such a-Warner Brothers and DC, I'm sure they have, like, hitmen, you know, like they've tapped this room and if I say anything, they'll just shoot me when I leave.Well, I'm curious though, without getting into specifics, is there something that you see it redeeming about this character, or is he just totally blacked?Not at all, yeah. Zero empathy. I mean, you just have to wait and see, I guess. I mean, it's the most fun I've had with a character and probably will ever have. And, the movie itself, I think, is far exceeding my expectations. It's looking, well I haven't seen anything, but from what I feel and what I've heard, I think it's gonna be a really fun movie to watch.Christian mentioned A Clockwork Orange or Sid Vicious as two references that he's seeing in your performance. Do you agree on those two, or any others that you've thought of in particular?Yeah, I guess so. A Clockwork Orange was a very early starting point for both Chris (Nolan) and I, but we kinda flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether. And Sid Vicious? Yeah, I guess so, I guess so. Yhere's a bit of everything in him. There's nothing really that consistent. It was an exhausting process. I actually had quite a bit of time off in between scenes, weeks sometimes, but it was required because whenever I was working, it exhausted me to the bone, at the end of the day I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, I was just absolutely wrecked. And if I had to do that every day, I couldn't have done what I did. I would have had to have done a milder version of it. But the schedule really permitted me to just exhaust myself.

November 10, 2007

Which was the more complex character to play: Bob Dylan or, for example, the Joker?The Joker (laughs), the Joker for sure. I was kind of relieved of the duty of physically portraying Bob Dylan. I didn't really have to.
So, yeah, I'd say, I guess the Joker, although the Joker was actually-that was the most fun I've ever had, probably ever will have playing a character. I'm not sure whether it was-it was hard stamina wise, because it was just high level of energy were needed, required, every day. But it was incredibly enjoyable.What is it that you wanted to bring to this character that we haven't seen before?You're just gonna have to wait and see. And it's done, too. So...Are you done?Yeah, yeah, yeah.Did you already have an idea of how to play him? Or did Nolan say, “Hey, this is how you play him”?No. It was one of those moments where I was asked if I would be interested in playing the Joker, and I knew five seconds later exactly how to play it. And I sat down with Chris and shared my thoughts with him, and they were identical to his, and we just kind of, went from there, yeah, yeah.

November 10, 2007 - Tribute.ca

Everyone I've spoken to who's working on Batman says: "You are it". Has it been a childhood dream to play the Joker?Kind of. I remember seeing Jack Nicholson and thinking that he looked like he was having so much fun playing that. And if it was Tim Burton doing the Batman film again, and he asked me to play the Joker, I probably wouldn't have done it because it would have meant having to fill Jack's shoes, which is impossible because he was brilliant and perfect in Tim's style of Batman.
But when Chris asked me to be a part of this film, I already knew the world he had created because I'd seen Batman Begins, and so I knew that it was open to a fresh interpretation. And I just made complete sense. I knew exactly how to do it the second he asked me. And, yeah, it fit like a glove, it was fun.

November 10, 2007

How's working on a film like this (I'm Not There) sort of balance, or compare, to working on A Dark Knight? The Joker is very enigmatic and Bob Dylan is very enigmatic... but the Joker is sort of, actively pursuing a certain kind of emotional or philosophical anarchy.Is he? (laughs)It seems to be at least, you know?Yeah. Um... not yeah. It couldn't have been further apart these two experiences, and the preparation. The Joker... I don't know.... I mean, God if I tell you too much, I know like, Warner Brothers will send an assassin down and, like, knock me off in the streets of New York.I visited the set earlier.Oh you did? Oh, great. You'll be shot, too, you know, joint. I don't know what to say about it. I haven't seen anything of it. I put a lot of work into it and it was definitely the most fun I've had with the character.Yeah?Yeah, it was really a lot of fun.

November 10, 2007 - Fandango, by Alisha Davis

Were you a Batman fan?Not as a kid, no. I grew up with sisters. And so the only comic books that were lying around were like, Archie, you know, and I watched Batman on the TV show kind of thing, like the early kind of Batman shows and, you know, where they had the wire and the cape and they're pretending to walk up the side of the building kind of thing. I really loved Tim Burton's Batman movie.The Joker. I've seen the pictures that your makeup was incredible. What was that experience like, playing the Joker?It was awesome. It was the most fun I've had playing a character, hands down. And I think the movie is gonna be awesome. I'm very excited for it. I haven't seen anything, nothing. They're so conscious of it. They really don't want anyone to see anything, it's very secretive. But just from what I've seen, like, firsthand, and just from what I hear, I think it's gonna be good.

November 10, 2007 - FEARnet, by Joe McCabe

What do you look for in the film roles you take?It takes up so much of your time and energy to go away from your life for a few months. I get really obsessed with it, and I kind of lock myself down. So it really has to be worth it, and it has to be something that challenges me—that has an element of fear attached to it. And something that I feel is going to teach me something. That’s gonna further me. Otherwise, what’s the point?You’ve gone on record as saying you weren’t a huge fan of comic books. What attracted you to The Dark Knight?Yeah. I mean, the only reason I wasn't [was], I grew up in a household of girls, so there were [was] very few Batman comic books lying around. They were mainly like Archie. So that's probably the only reason why I never grew up reading Batman. But, you know, I really loved Batman Begins and the character of the Joker was just too good to turn down. And, you know, I've said this before, but if Tim Burton was doing The Dark Knight and asked me to play the Joker, I wouldn't have taken it because to to try and even-to touch what Jack Nicholson did in Tim Burton's world would be a crime. And so, when Chris (Nolan) came to me, and I knew how he'd already set up the world for me, I'd seen what world it was that I would be playing in. So I knew it was open for a fresh interpretation, and I also instantly kind of had something up my sleeve, which happened to be exactly what Chris was kind of looking for. We sat down and kind of shared ideas and they were the same. And so we just went with it.Can you say how that something might differ from Jack Nicholson's portrayal?How it will? You just have to check for that, to find out the answer to that.

November 10, 2007 - MovieWeb, by Julian Roman

So when it comes to these big budget films, right?Yeah.Because, I know you're being asked a million Joker, Dark Knight questions...Yeah.I wonder, do you do those films where you do like, one big budget film every five years, just so you can keep doing films like this (I'm Not There)? Or does it really appeal to you to go out there and play the Joker?Yeah, I mean, I'd play the Joker if-
If The Dark Knight had a budget of a hundred thousand dollars, I'd still wanna play that role. To me it was just the role of a lifetime. I had more fun playing that character than I probably will play, you know, ever. And probably in the future, I'll probably never come across a character that was as fun as that was. So yeah, it just so happened to be this wonderful character that was a part of this huge machine. So yeah, it was exciting, it was a lot of fun.I love Ang Lee... I just want to ask you, what's it like to work with a man of that talent and grace and then work with like, Christopher Nolan and Todd Haynes? Is there any common string that these great and creative abstract directors have, that is ubiquitous amongst all of them?Yeah, I guess, like, no hesitation, you know? Like their choices are instinctual and their immediate, like there's not a lot of second thought to their direction, they know exactly what they are after. I think that's usually the common kinda thread amongst good directors.
It's the guys that sit there kind of twiddling their thumbs that you worry about.

November 10, 2007 - JoBlo.com, by Jenny Karakaya

Can you give us any insight on Batman?Um, he loves cheese (laughs).(Laughs) No. All right.

November 18, 2007 - WPS1 Art Radio, by Stephen Schaefer

Did you know when you did this (I'm Not There), that Christian Bale, of course, is in this movie as one of the other Bob Dylans, that you would be working with him in The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel?Yes, I did. Yeah, it was funny to see Batman in an afro (laughs).
I marvel at Christian. His dedication to acting is phenomenal. He's really one of those actors who he metaphorically and physically starves himself for roles. Obviously I work with him on this film, but in Batman, it was a lot of fun working with him. He manages to pull a human being out of that Batsuit, and it's very intriguing and very curious kind of process to watch. We had a lot of fun working together.You played the Joker, of course, in that. And first I've heard from Michael Caine about what a frightening entrance you make with, I understand, seven Dwarfs out of an elevator. He talked about being on the set and said you're going to make everybody forget Jack Nicholson. But the first part of that is, after Brokeback Mountain, which some people thought was one of the landmark performances of the last twenty years, and compared it to Marlon Brando's work... I was actually surprised that you'd be in a big sort of popcorn movie, like a Batman movie, doing a role that Jack Nicholson had sort of, it seemed indelibly performed.... I was thinking, what is what is Heath ledger thinking here? Why does he want to do this when he's got, I don't know, maybe a new kind of career or prestige or whatever.Yeah. No, I agree with you. I (laughs), I don't know what I was thinking (laughs).
You know, I would have actually played the Joker if the budget for Dark Knight was a hundred thousand dollars, you know. It was truly just this character, was too good to turn down. And yes, it would be a crime to attempt to step, to follow Jack Nicholson's footpath that he so heavily stamped into to my memory of the Joker. I mean, I adore what he did and him in general. And like I said earlier, I think, if Tim Burton was doing The Dark Knight and it was gonna be a Tim Burton-esque film, and he asked me for some odd reason to bring the Joker back to life, I wouldn't do it, because Jack Nicholson did it perfectly.For the Tim Burton vision.Correct. And instead I had Christopher Nolan asking me, and I'd already seen this world he'd created in Batman Begins. And so I knew there wasn't room for the old interpretation. There was in fact an opportunity for a new version of the Joker, and that excited me. And I also knew instantly what to do, it was one of those moments where I didn't really have to give it that much thought. When I was asked to do it, I knew exactly what to do and I sat down in front of Chris and I gave him my ideas, and they were identical to his ideas. We kind of chuckled at it, and I walked out, and I locked myself away for six weeks in a room, and kinda came up with this creep. But he's not just going to be scary, there are a few surprises, I think. It was the most fun I've had with a character, hands down. It was just-
So that's why I'm in this monster machine of a movie, popcorn movie if you will, is it was purely a character choice, I can honestly say that. And, so I am to blame and I can't complain at this point on from what happens from that movie, but I really couldn't turn it down. Creatively, it was just too good to be true.

November 2007 - Press interviews

Other Interviews

Christian Bale

Christian Bale tells one story that certainly bears this out. He recalls their first scene together, where Batman interrogates The Joker down at Gotham P.D. "It was wonderful," Bale says, chuckling slightly, "because you're doing it, and you're into it, and someone in the crew will have a question and it pulls you right out, and you turn around, and they have these two-way mirrors, so everywhere we looked we were looking at ourselves, and you suddenly see what you're looking like to everybody else. And we were just a couple of freaks!" He laughs loudly. "I'm standing there in the suit and he's there, you know, with his Chelsea Smile, and it was just a couple of complete nutters. We both couldn't stop laughing!"He was very good company, Heath. I really enjoy it when somebody is pushing the work as much as he did. You can see how much he loved it."Bale said Ledger had watched video clips of the late Sex Pistols bass player while researching the role.
"Heath's created an anarchic Joker unlike any ever seen before."
"He modelled the part on Sid Vicious which made this punk-like character. I think it is a classic portrayal of a great villain."
"Heath immersed himself in the role. I would love to see him get an award."

Aaron Eckhart

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Michael Jai White

Terry Gilliam

Andrew Garfield

The photoshoot

Months before the release of "The Dark Knight", David Erwin, former Executive Creative Director of DC Comics, collaborated with Christopher Nolan to set the vision for the project. He was involved in every aspect, including directing actors during photo shoots for theatrical marketing, promotions, and licensed merchandise.He says: "I would direct all the photo shoots"... "We were shooting and I felt Heath was starting to burn out", remembers Erwin. "The propmaster had told me earlier that Heath was really into knives and would do all these knife tricks. I went over to the propmaster and asked him to bring me one of his knives. Once the knife came in, Heath just kind of lit up again. He found renewed energy".
Erwin describes the experience of working with the late actor as "truly magical" and unlike anything he's seen before or since. "No matter what you do, you always learn something", he explains. "Christian Bale, for example, wants direction. When I was working with him, he wanted my direction and was looking for it. Then you have Heath. I went and reviewed everything with him and we talked it over. We’re in front of the camera and then I get out of camera and then slowly, I just see him morph his physical being, spreading his feet out like Charlie Chaplin, starting to hunch over. He starts talking to himself and the next thing I know, the actor Heath that I was just talking to has completely vanished and I am there now with the Joker... Then after we go through the shoot for a while, or any time I interjected or came in-camera, then I’m back to talking with Heath. Then he’d go right back into the Joker".These are 43 images from the photoshoot. 32 of them were leaked online years ago, while the other 11 have been identified, recovered, and added to attempt a full reconstruction of the session. Additionally, there are three more close-up photos.In my view, all these images hold greater significance compared to scene stills or behind-the-scenes photos. In these shots, Heath poses in character in front of the camera, sometimes looking directly into the lens. It’s as if these images offer an additional interpretation of The Joker beyond what’s shown in the movie.

Movie Posters

Movie posters generated from the photo session.

Leaked drafts of unused posters

I’m pretty sure these are official images created by the film’s creative team. They were in the draft stage and were later rejected and not used, but ended up being leaked online. Most of the photos come from Heath’s official photoshoot, and some of them still haven’t been released to the public.

Camera Footage

The videos shot by the Joker were in fact shot and mostly directed by Heath Ledger. For the first video, Wally Pfister came in and checked the lights, the sound guys set up a few extra mics, everyone hid around the corner and they let Heath play. Ledger had been planning to direct and was an incredible collaborator with a great mind. Nolan trusted him implicitly. Apparently every take Ledger did was different, but always in line with the story and always fantastic.Ledger's work on the first video was so fantastic that Nolan wasn't even there for the second video shoot with Anthony Michael Hall. He gave Ledger the camera and said "do whatever you want."

Andy Luther (Brian Douglas)

Anthony Michael Hall (Mike Engel)

Heath was really cool. I mean, he was very low-key. And quiet. But he was also very concentrated, in terms of when he was working. And I thought he was fantastic in that film. But a kind of low-key guy. He was from Australia, and was a very low-key kind of guy. But I also saw this other side when he was working, when he was focused on what he was doing, and that was cool.We got to set at a place call Cardington - it was in England, a former Air Force base that they turned into studios - and we had been waiting round for a bunch of hours, and then all of a sudden, Heath and I were asked to the set, and we got there, and Chris Nolan turned to both of us, and he said "I'm going to let Heath direct the sequence" so then Heath and I went off to work with the stunt guys, and they hung me upside-down, and then we worked out the scene, and then Heath filmed it on a camcorder, basically, as he was - it's a ransom video, right? So that's how Heath filmed it, that's how he shot all the angles. It was fun, because we were cut loose by Chris Nolan. And the studio was amazing - it's probably the biggest soundstage I've ever been in! It's probably 10 blocks long, New York City blocks long, and 10 stories high.They built all of Gotham inside there. A whole city inside a soundstage.

Contact

[email protected]