12 Disturbing Truths Behind Heath Ledger’s Joker

7. He wanted Christian Bale to beat him

As we know, Ledger liked to really get into his role. In the interrogation scene, there was a brutal scene where Batman beat up the Joker – and we thought the combat was acted out immaculately! It looked so real. Turns out, that’s because it was real.

He wanted the scenes to be as authentic as possible, and asked Bale to beat him up as hard as possible. So what we saw during that scene was a real fight – we can only imagine how much that must’ve hurt.

8. He did his own makeup

Makeup artists weren’t in charge of the Joker look that Ledger adapted, or not originally anyway. He wanted it to look like how a man would do it with a bunch of cheap makeup – so that’s what he did.

The distressed yet original look was approved by the directors, and so it was up to the makeup team to recreate the rough, psychopath look every day for shooting.

9. Ledger looked like a madman on set

As is common knowledge by now, Ledger liked to stay in character as much as possible. This lead to a skateboarding Joker disturbing the cast and production team during breaks – yes, Ledger loved to skateboard and did it often while on set, but imagine that in full Joker costume.

However apparently he was always in good spirits and would often try to make the crew and cast laugh during filming, and the environment was always happy and very relaxes – which would’ve balanced out the fact that he looked like a crazy psychopath all the time.