Christopher Nolan’s movie Oppenheimer earned Robert Downey JR and Cillian Murphy their first Oscars. The filmmaker himself picked the golden knight himself this year. Heath Ledger also earned his Oscar posthumously by appearing as Joker in Nolan’s The Dark Knight. One can say Chris is an Oscar-winner maker! However, the celebrated filmmaker was unsure about Heath’s voice as the Clown Prince of Crime in the Christian Bale led superhero/comic book movie. Scroll below for the deets.
The movie was released in 2008 and featured Ledger as Joker, aka Arthur Fleck. Unfortunately, a few months before the film was released in the theatres, Heath passed away due to a drug overdose. This year, while receiving the Golden Globe Award for Oppenheimer, Nolan recalled the last time he was on the Golden Globes Awards stage when he took Heath’s award in his absence after the actor’s demise.
The movie not only earned Heath Ledger an Oscar, but it also did outstandingly at the box office. The Dark Knight opened to $158.4 million and went on to gross $534.9 million in the US. Christian Bale’s movie earned $1 billion at the global box office. Even today, Heath Ledger’s performance as Joker is stated as iconic. Some of the dialogues and the way he performed them are unparalleled. According to IndieWire via Showbiz Cheatsheet, Christopher Nolan was unsure about Heath‘s Joker voice, and his crew was also confused about it.
Speaking of Heath Ledger’s voice as Joker, Christopher Nolan said, “There were moments when you go, ‘Oh, that’s exactly right,’ and there are moments when you go, ‘I hope this is good because I have no idea.’” He added, “The voice was certainly scary because it would shift in pitch.”
The Dark Knight maker continued, “You never quite know which way the pitch is going to go with the voice. Just as the physical movements were [unpredictable], you didn’t know what he was going to do with his hands, the way he moved, it was always a surprise. The actual tone of his voice was a surprise, too. Sometimes threatening and sometimes more sing-song and light.” Nolan added that the actor’s performance confused the film’s crew.
The Oscar-winner mentioned, “After a couple of days, they said, ‘He’s the business,’ as they say. They could just tell.” Heath set a benchmark for his portrayal, and the cinephiles will never forget it.
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