The Tiny Detail Heath Ledger Used To Perfect The Joker's Dark Knight Look
For "The Dark Knight Trilogy," director Christopher Nolan wanted to make a "logical" Batman story. That meant not only crafting an internal psychology for Bruce Wayne but also dragging the mechanics and aesthetics of his world down to reality. There's a reason the films spend so much time explaining how Batman's gear works (Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) is turned into the Q to Batman's James Bond) and turn Gotham City from a Gothic metropolis into basically just Chicago with a different name.
This mandate for realism shaped the other characters in Batman's world, especially his villains. In "The Dark Knight," the Joker's (Heath Ledger) clown visage — white skin, green hair, ruby lips — is only makeup. His disfigurement is a Glasgow smile; Ledger's Joker frowns a lot more than in the comics, but those scars mean he never stops smiling.
Ledger's performance is now legendary for how he immersed himself in the role; before shooting, he spent six weeks at a hotel in London practicing his performance. In a behind-the-scenes feature on the making of "The Dark Knight," Nolan revealed another one of Ledger's touches: he applied his own Joker makeup:
"As an actor, [Ledger's] saying okay, this character would put his own makeup on, you know, in real life. So what would that look like, if he just got the makeup? The thing that stuck from that is he always had makeup on his fingers and under his fingernails and everything, as he would have from putting it on just with his hands."
Compared to other iterations, Ledger's Joker looks downright disheveled; his hair falls into long, greasy strands, rather than being neat and close-cropped. And in scenes where he's not wearing his purple gloves — including his interrogation by Batman and his visit to Harvey Dent in the hospital — smears of white and red makeup can be seen on his long-fingernailed hands.
The Do-It-Yourself Joker
The comic book version of the Joker has bleached skin and chemically-induced green hair. His origin story was first suggested in "Detective Comics" #168, "The Man Behind the Red Hood!" (by Bill Finger and artists Lew Sayre Schwartz & George Roussos). The Joker was once a criminal called the Red Hood, who dove into a river of chemical waste to escape Batman, and the experience mutated his skin and hair. Alan Moore and Brian Bolland remixed this origin story in "The Killing Joke," then Tim Burton brought it to the screen for his "Batman" movie. Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) discovering his new reflection in a rinky-dink plastic surgeon's office and maniacally laughing is the scariest scene in "Batman," bar none.
This origin fits into Burton's heightened Gotham City, but not Nolan's grounded one. In "The Dark Knight," the Joker wears only self-applied makeup and at one point is seen with no makeup on at all. It makes the Joker even more frightening; his appearance is something he chooses, not an act of fate. Every time he puts on the makeup, he's making a decision to be the Joker.
The makeup is also applied inconsistently across the film. When the Joker is imprisoned by the Gotham Police, his makeup is smudged; splotches along his cheeks and forehead have no makeup at all while the black eyeshadow has seeped into the white, making portions of his face a messy gray instead of clown-ish white. His hair has also lost some of the green dye, giving way to Ledger's own dirty blond hair. The Joker would have to redress his makeup regularly to account for sweat, but he has no ability to do so while imprisoned.
Heath Ledger went above and beyond in adding details to his Joker, and it's a true tragedy we won't see any more dedicated performances from him.