Starring as The Joker in The Dark Knight movie, Heath Ledger cemented his status as one of the best of the best with a performance that no one has come close to matching ever since then. Not only will that role keep him him forever alive, his performances in other movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, Ned Kelly, The Brothers Grimm, Brokeback Mountain, Casanova, Candy, I’m Not There, etc., will no doubt be enough to keep him fresh in the minds of everyone even after his demise almost a decade ago.
To celebrate Heath’s amazing acting capabilities, here are some interesting facts about the Australian actor and director that you might not know:
- His first role was in the Australian series called ‘Sweat’ was as a gay bicyclist.
- One of Heath Ledger’s role model was Chuck Norris. He idolised Chuck as a child.
- He used his own cosmetics kit to design the makeup for The Joker in the movie, The Dark Knight.
- The eccentric rolling of the tongue and other mannerism he did while playing the Joker happened because of Heath’s own habits, while playing The Joker, took place because of Heath’s own habits.
- In the scene in The Dark Knight where The Joker was dressed as a nurse before blowing up Gotham Hospital, the name tag on his uniform read “Matilda,” which is the name of his daughter.
- To prepare for his role as The Joker, Heath spent most of his time in isolation and seclusion of a motel room and slept for just 2 hours everyday