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Over the weekend, key members of the cast and crew of "The Dark Knight" gathered in Los Angeles to promote the film's upcoming July 18 release.
While the film justifies every bit of summer blockbuster hype and fanboy enthusiasm that has come its way, it also serves as an unfortunately necessary memorial to the amazing talent of Heath Ledger. His work as the Joker stands as the last role he completed before his untimely death in January.
We asked Ledger's co-stars, director Christopher Nolan and producer Emma Thomas to share their memories of working with Ledger and their reactions to his incredible (and, yes, Oscar-worthy) performance.
Christian Bale ["Bruce Wayne/Batman"]
“The first scene we shot was in the interrogation room with the two of us. That was great, we were allowed to be by ourselves without any crew in the room. There [were] mirrors all the way around us. Everywhere we looked there were these two freaks sitting at a table eyeballing each other.
“I felt that I was seeing in Heath someone who got the same enjoyment from acting that I do. Recognizing the ridiculousness of what we do as grown men still pretending to be other people, but loving that ridiculousness. Loving the job all the more for that and taking it all the more seriously precisely because of that.”
Maggie Gyllenhaal [“Rachel Dawes”]
“I think that [Heath] does something in this movie that’s really extraordinary. I think it’s rare and unusual even for the greatest and most experienced actors to find themselves in a stride that’s as free as he finds himself in this movie. I could feel that when I was working with him. Even though the scene is scary and dark and full of tension, working with someone who is so free was so much fun.”
Christopher Nolan [director, producer and co-writer]
“Of the actors I’ve worked with he was one of the easiest, most delightful presences on set. Not at all dark and intense when he didn’t need to be. He was very easygoing and very kind to everyone around him, which is certainly not the Joker. For those of us who were lucky enough to work with him and know him, it’s a real testament to his skill as an actor how utterly unlike him, and the way he saw the world, this character is.”
[On the possibility of Ledger receiving an Oscar nomination]
“I felt a great responsibility to finish the performance, put the performance together in a way in which [Heath] intended it to be seen. The thing that’s a relief to me is that people seem to be responding to it very much the way he intended. That’s the key thing.”
Emma Thomas [producer]
“Right from the moment he started shooting, the first day he was on the set doing that character, I think everyone really knew that this [was] something really special. I was just remembering yesterday, there was one day he came in for a costume fitting and he tried on the nurse’s outfit. He walked across the room and it was like ‘That’s the Joker right there.’”
Aaron Eckhart ["Harvey Dent"]
“I didn’t know Heath that well, unfortunately, but the times I got to spend with him, he thrilled me as an actor. When we were in the hospital doing our scene together…we weren’t sure how we were going to play that scene. It was the first time we really got together.
“That day he was the Joker all day. He kept the Joker alive. He had to. The Joker’s mind [doesn’t] fly on any straight line. He did what he needed to do to keep the Joker alive, by talking to himself and other things an actor does. Whenever I’ve done that the crew thought I was crazy. But I felt like the crew was so with Heath. Everybody was. Everyone was watching him as a fan, he was electrifying the room all the time. He was unpredictable as an actor.”
Gary Oldman ["Lt. Jim Gordon"]
“From the first morning I spent with him, I thought to myself ‘fuck all, this kid’s a bit good.’ You know that you’re in the presence of something really special [with Heath]. It’s like he’s tuned in and found a certain frequency, a radio station that we can’t hear. There are actors in their career, they’re going along subsonic and then go supersonic, through the sound barrier—Jack Nicholson in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ Al Pacino in ‘Dog Day Afternoon.’ You see these landmark performances. Heath is one of them.
“There’s no vanity about the performance. I wasn’t sure what I would feel [when I saw the movie]. I’ve never been in a situation like this, when you’ve got a premiere coming up and you’re thinking ‘well Heath’s not gonna be there, and how am I gonna feel when I see it?’ And [when I watched the movie] I really, honestly had forgot he had died. I just watched this great performance.”
Look for more coverage of "The Dark Knight" on Metromix throughout July.
