The New York Times profiles The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, covering his early career and the success of the last Batman film, as well as the death of Heath Ledger:
It came well into editing, and only after the studio had introduced Mr. Ledger’s Joker through posters, trailers and a six-minute Imax short. But it automatically raised the stakes: the acclaimed actor’s final role would be … a comic-book grotesque? Worse, though Mr. Ledger had finished work on “The Dark Knight” in October and was already halfway through another film, news that the prescription drugs that killed him included sleep aids — along with narcotics — prompted Internet chatter about whether his intense performance as the Joker, styled after Malcolm McDowell’s in “A Clockwork Orange,” had been a factor in his demise.
Mr. Ledger, however, also called it “the most fun I’ve ever had, or probably ever will have, playing a character.” But his fatigue was obvious, said Michael Caine, who briefly overlapped with him. “He was exhausted, I mean he was really tired. I remember saying to him, ‘I’m too old to have the bloody energy to play that part.’ And I thought to myself, I didn’t have the energy when I was his age.”
Mr. Pfister, the cinematographer, said Mr. Ledger seemed “like he was busting blood vessels in his head,” he was so intense. “It was like a séance, where the medium takes on another person and then is so completely drained.”
Be sure to check out the slide show as well.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Great article (you can link to the article from the page with the slide show)… I hope it doesn’t seem disrespectful to the tragedy of Ledger’s death to say I cannot wait for this movie!!
I think the new Bat-costume is too busy and overdone, but I’m sure I’ll forget all about that once I’m actually watching the film.
When you read about the care Nolan takes with his films, and how seriously he takes the Batman mythos, it becomes all the more clear that WB needs to kill the JLA project. Now.