The Joker (Heath Ledger)

"This town deserves a better class of criminal...and I'm gonna give it to them."

- The Joker

The Joker was a criminal mastermind who terrorized Gotham City.

Origin and early life
"Wanna know how I got these scars?"

- The Joker

Much of the Joker's early life, as known only by his own testimony to Gotham City's public and officials, was filled with contradictions, and his true identity remained unresolved for the officials of Gotham City.

The Joker claimed when he was a child his father was a "drinker" and "a fiend". One night, presumably drunk, he assaulted the Joker's mother who reacted by getting a kitchen knife to defend herself. Angered further by this reaction, the Joker's father attacked her. The father then went to his son and asked him "Why so serious?", and proceeded to slice a single, long gash through each of his son's cheeks.

The Joker also gave an alternate explanation as to the origin of his scars, inflicted as a young man. The Joker explained to Rachel Dawes that he once had a young wife, who told him that he worried too much and should smile more often. His wife was a gambler and fell into difficulty with loan sharks who eventually carved her face as a retaliation for her lack of payments. Without enough money to afford cosmetic surgeries, the Joker's wife was forced to endure her disfigurement. The Joker explained that he didn't care about the scars, and only wanted her to smile again. To show empathy or encourage a feeling of solidarity, the Joker gave himself a Glasgow smile with a razor. Following the Joker's self-mutilation, his wife left him, unable to tolerate his new appearance.

Arrival in Gotham
"I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you...stranger."

- The Joker

Shortly after the death of Ra's al Ghul, Batman discussed with Lieutenant James Gordon the effect he had had on Gotham City since his appearance. Gordon then revealed that a criminal with "a taste for theatrics" recently committed a double homicide and an armed robbery, leaving behind a Joker playing card as a calling-card. Gordon also warned that just as escalation occurs in terms of the weaponry used by criminals and police, so might the scale and style of criminality change in reaction to Batman's appearance.

Several months later a group of bank robbers, (Grumpy, Happy, Dopey, Chuckles, Bozo and an unidentified bus-driver) under the direction of the Joker, robbed Gotham National Bank which was used as a money-laundering front for Gotham's gangs. The clown mask wearing robbers whittled down their own numbers within minutes in a series of calculated betrayals. Finally only "Bozo" remained, who revealed himself as the Joker to the manager of Gotham National Bank, who had earlier confronted the robbers with a shotgun. The Joker then escaped with the bank's cash in a yellow school bus.

Shortly following the bank robbery, the Joker arrived unannounced at a meeting between the rival mob leaders of Gotham, which he described as a "group therapy session". The Joker proposed that it was Batman's interference that had resulted in idealistic leaders like Harvey Dent rising in popularity, and offered his services to kill "the Batman" for half of all the money that Mr. Lau, an illegitimate Chinese accountant, took away from Gotham for safe keeping. He also warned them that Lau would betray them if arrested, claiming to know a squealer when he sees one. While the Bratva mobster, the Chechen, and Sal Maroni were interested, Gambol, angered by the Joker's lack of respect, attempts to kill him, forcing the Joker to make reveal his insurance policy: several grenades hidden under his coat, allowing him to make a quick escape. Frustrated Gambol puts a bounty on him. The Joker later took revenge that night by having his men come to Gambol, claiming to have killed the Joker. In a bit of unintended tragic irony, the Joker's 'dead' body is brought inside in a garbage bag before attacking and killing Gambol with a knife, and having Gambol's men fight for a spot to join the Joker's small gang, made up mostly of violent and mentally-ill escapees of Arkham Asylum, who had been drawn to the Joker as their leader.

After the summit of Gotham's crime lords, Sal Maroni sent an ex-cop private investegator named Hamlin to find out the Joker's identity. Hamlin returned to Maroni several weeks later, disheveled, and questioned Maroni if the Joker even really existed, because he couldn't find any leads to his true identity. Then, in the middle of an upscale restaurant, Hamlin began laughing uncontrollably, and collapsed dead. Maroni would discover Hamlin's body had traces of a plant from somewhere in Asia.

Eventually, realizing that Batman had retrieved Lau from Hong Kong and that the police had struck a deal to testify against them, Sal Maroni and the Chechen relented, finally hiring the Joker to kill the Batman. The Joker first kidnapped a Batman impersonator, filmed his murder and hung the body, complete with white make-up and a Joker scars, outside the mayor's office. In the murder tape he sent to the media, the Joker told all of Gotham that if the Batman didn't unmask himself and turn himself in he would kill innocent people every day. As a result of the Batman not turning himself in, the first major victims were Janet Surillo, the judge presiding over Dent's indictments, and then Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb.

Later the Joker and his gang stormed a fundraiser at Bruce Wayne's penthouse to kill Harvey Dent and was confronted by Batman. The Joker only managed to escape by throwing Rachel Dawes out a window, who Batman then lept after and saved.

The killings then continued with two innocents and an attempt on the mayor's life at a memorial for the murdered police commissioner. The Joker appeared in public without makeup, impersonated one of the Honor Guards, and shot his rifle at Mayor Anthony Garcia. Lieutenant James Gordon, however, was killed saving the mayor. As a result of this, Batman told Dent to call a press conference so he could reveal his identity and stop the killings. In a surprise move, Dent instead claimed to be the Batman himself and was subsequently arrested.

While being transported the Joker and his gang attacked the caravan of police vehicles to kill Dent. Batman soon arrived to stop the assault, but stayed his hand at killing the Joker. The Joker prepared to kill Batman but Gordon - revealed to have faked his death - stepped out of one of the police vehicles and stopped the Joker, and was promoted to Commissioner by the mayor.

Assault on Gotham
"Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos."

- The Joker

With the Joker in custody Gordon and Batman believed his madness was over, but became alarmed when informed that Harvey Dent had gone missing. Desperate, Gordon let Batman torture the Joker for information, but the Joker seemed unshaken by the pain. Instead, he gleefully told Batman his view of people as selfish and violent, only needing a little pressure before descending to madness. He also admited he could never kill Batman, considering him his only equal. Dent's kidnapping was part of a test, to see if Batman would save him or Rachel, whom the Joker could tell Batman cared for. The Joker willingly told him where both were located. After most the police were gone, the Joker took his guard hostage and escaped by detonating a phone-activated bomb he surgically planted in the stomach of one the men who was arrested with him, with Lau in tow. Gordon was disheartened when he realized the Joker wanted to be captured.

Dent and Rachel each awoke tied to chairs with barrels of explosive material surrounding them and a speakerphone hooked up to the other's location. Rachel confessed her love for him and agreed to marry him. Harvey fell on the floor and his left side was completely immersed in turpentine. Batman arrived but found Dent instead of Rachel. He realized that the Joker had lied about Rachel and Dent's whereabouts to further crush Batman's morale. Batman rescued Dent as the building exploded and Harvey's face was badly burned, while Gordon was unable to rescue Rachel before the explosion. In the hospital Harvey was driven to madness over the loss of Rachel, and blamed Batman, Gordon and the Joker. This act caused Sal Maroni to tell Gordon the Joker's location, finding him too dangerous for business. The Joker later met the Chechen in a container ship with Lau and was given his reward: half the mobs smuggled money, which he casually burned along with Lau. He betrayed the Chechen and took control of his men. The Joker then made a call to a news program where one of Wayne Corps employees was threatening to go public on the news with information about Batman's identity. He was interrupted by the Joker who stated he had changed his mind, believing Gotham to be too boring without Batman. To "give others the fun" he threatened that if someone didn't kill the employee in sixty minutes he would blow up a hospital. Gordon abandoned his ambush on the Joker to focus on evacuating all city hospitals, while, the Joker, poorly disguised as a nurse (still wearing his 'Joker' face paint), entered the hospital room of Harvey Dent. Blaming the mob and Gordon's corrupt cops for the kidnapping and murder of Rachel, he convinced Harvey to exact his revenge upon them. Dent responded by flipping a coin to decide the Joker's fate, giving him the same chance Rachel had. Soon after Dent left, Joker detonated the Gotham General Hospital, skipping merrily away (though pausing and hitting his detonator in frustration when most of the bombs temporarily fail to blow). He and his men then stole one the buses nearby and kidnapped the TV reporter and his crew inside.

While Harvey confronted one of the corrupt cops, the Joker declared that he would rule the streets and that anyone left in Gotham would be subjected to his rule. He told people they could leave now but that he would have a surprise for them in the tunnel and on the bridge, which people then avoided, using instead two ferries, one ship full of ordinary civilians and one of criminals, as Gordon feared the Joker would want to recruit them. However, the Joker had loaded each of them with explosives. In hopes of showing everyone how evil and corrupt they can be he gave the passengers of each ship the detonator to the bombs to the other and offers both survival if they detonate the other ferry. If they didn't choose by midnight, the Joker would blow up both ships.

Batman discovered not only the Joker's location at an unfinished skyscraper, but that the majority of his "gang" were actually hostages wearing clown-masks with unloaded guns taped to their hands and that the people dressed as hostages were the actual criminals. Batman was forced to fight not only the Joker's men but the SWAT teams as well to save the hostages. He finally confronted the Joker, who set several dogs on him and managed to pin him under the scaffolding. He gleefully waited as the ferry's deadline nears, and was visibly disappointed when both ferries refused to kill the other to save themselves. The civilians voted to blow up the other ferry, but could not bring themselves to actually do so, while one of the criminals stepped forward and, taking the detonator, threw it out a porthole saying that the cops should have done that from the start. Before he could detonate both ferries, Batman hit him with his shooting wrist-blades and threw the laughing man over the edge. But, to the Joker's annoyance, Batman refused to kill him, instead grabbing him with his grapple gun and leaving him hanging for the police. With this act, the Joker acknowledged, in a disappointed tone, that Batman really is incorruptible but that Dent is no longer the "White Knight"; he's unleashed the scarred man on the city. Joker states that Dent was his "ace in the hole" in his plan to show the people of Gotham that everyone is corruptible, thus undoing Dent's work before his transformation into Two-Face. Batman left the Joker to dangle helplessly as he was approached by the SWAT team. As they approached him, he laughed maniacally, swaying on the line. Because Joker was able to darken the city's perception of Batman, it can be argued Joker won.

Incarceration
The circumstances of the Joker's arrest and incarceration have remained unrevealed.

Behind the Scenes
The origins of the Joker are left deliberately ambiguous in The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan and his co-writer Jonathan Nolan suggested the Joker's first two appearances in 1940's issues of Batman as crucial influences. Just as in these issues of the Batman comic, the Joker's back-story is expanded upon little. Instead, the Joker is portrayed as an "absolute". "The Joker we meet in The Dark Knight is fully formed...To me, the Joker is an absolute. There are no shades of gray to him — maybe shades of purple. He's unbelievably dark. He bursts in just as he did in the comics." Nolan later reiterated, "We never wanted to do an origin story for the Joker in this film", because "the arc of the story is much more Harvey Dent's; the Joker is presented as an absolute. It's a very thrilling element in the film, and a very important element, but we wanted to deal with the rise of the Joker, not the origin of the Joker."

Heath Ledger described the Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy". Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past, but had been unable to do so. When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he realized a way to make the character work consistent with that film's tone, and Nolan agreed with his anarchic interpretation. To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice and psychology, and kept a diary, in which he recorded the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. While he initially found it difficult, Ledger was eventually able to generate a voice that did not sound like Jack Nicholson's take on the character in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. He was also given Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth to read, which he "really tried to read [...] and put it down". Ledger also cited inspirations such as A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious, which were "a very early starting point for Christian Bale and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether." "There’s a bit of everything in him. There’s nothing that consistent," Ledger said, adding that "There are a few more surprises to him." Before Ledger was confirmed to play the Joker in July 2006, Paul Bettany, Lachy Hulme, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell, and Robin Williams publicly expressed interest in the role. On not being invited to reprise the Joker, Jack Nicholson remarked that he was "furious". In turn, responding to his initially-controversial selection to play the Joker, Ledger stated publicly, "It would not matter who is chosen to play the [Joker]. [...] In any film, there is always someone who does not like you and I am secure in my choices and my record. But I know at the end of the day you are never going to please anyone 100 percent…I refuse to carbon copy a performance. That would not be a challenge and it would be mocking Mr. Nicholson, whom I have much respect for."

Though a unique portrayal, this Joker interpretation maintains much of his comic personality, such as his refusal to kill Batman. His philosophy that people are all insane and Two-face's origin story in the film mirror the themes and plot of The Killing Joke, as well as his unreliable memory.

On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming The Dark Knight, Ledger died, leading to intense press attention and memorial tributes. In March 2008, four months prior to the film's scheduled release, Larry Carroll reported that "like Batman himself, Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal and director Christopher Nolan find themselves shifting gears between being secretive, superheroic and fighting back a deep sadness." "It was tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day," Nolan recalled. "But the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish." All of Ledger's scenes appear as he completed them in the filming; in editing the film, Nolan added no "digital effects" to alter Ledger's actual performance posthumously. Nolan has dedicated the film in part to Ledger's memory, as well as to the memory of technician Conway Wickliffe, who was killed during a car accident while preparing one of the film's stunts.

Design
The Joker's scruffy and grungy make-up is intended as a reflection of his "edgy" character. Costume designer Lindy Hemming described the Joker's look as reflecting his personality—that "he doesn't care about himself at all"; she avoided designing him as a vagrant but still made him appear to be "scruffier, grungier", so that "when you see him move, he's slightly twitchier or edgy." Nolan noted, "We gave a Francis Bacon spin to [his face]. This corruption, this decay in the texture of the look itself. It's grubby. You can almost imagine what he smells like." In creating the "anarchical" look of the Joker, Hemming drew inspiration from such countercultural pop culture artists as Pete Doherty, Iggy Pop, and Johnny Rotten. During the course of the film, the Joker only once removes his make-up, causing it to become more unkempt and resemble an infection as it worsens. Ledger described his "clown" mask, made up of three pieces of stamped silicone, as a "new technology", taking much less time for the make-up artists to apply than more-conventional prosthetics usually requires—the process took them only an hour—and resulting in Ledger's impression that he was barely wearing any make-up at all.

Gallery

 * The Joker (Heath Ledger)/Photo Gallery

Appearances

 * Batman Begins (mentioned only)
 * Batman Begins (Book) (mentioned only)
 * The Dark Knight
 * The Dark Knight (Book)