This is the only scene in The Dark Knight where you can see Heath Ledger's actual face.
Every other Joker shot is buried under white paint. The funeral required disguise. Joker hiding in plain sight as an honor guard, scars half-smudged, still visible if you looked. Nobody in the frame recognizes him. Nobody in the audience does either, until the rifles come up.
Ledger was 28. Looks 22 here. He shot this in Chicago in summer 2007. He had six months left.
He locked himself in a hotel room for a month before filming, kept a Joker diary that nobody saw until after his death, built a voice and a laugh that existed in no previous version of the character. By the time he walked onto a Chicago set in a Gotham PD uniform, every choice had been made.
The film made $1.005 billion. He won the Oscar posthumously, the second actor in history to do that after Peter Finch in 1976. He died six months before opening night.
This scene is the thesis of the whole movie. The Joker walks into Gotham's police department wearing the police department's uniform. The mayor stands six feet away. Every officer has been trained to trust the uniform. Gotham fails because Gotham trusts the uniform.
That's the face Gotham trained to trust.
Jordan Addison is the funniest player in the NFL 😭
- Suspended for the opening Drive for sneaking off in London
- Tried Reviving his teammate after he got hurt in the endzone
Never change Jordan 😭❤️