Heath Ledger told Christian Bale to hit him in 'The Dark Knight' interrogation scene

Heath Ledger as Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is considered as one of the best performances in cinema history. The late actor’s commitment to the character was to a level that he told his co-star Christian Bale, who played Bruce Wayne / Batman in the movie, to actually hit him during the interrogation scene in The Dark Knight. Read to know more.

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Heath Ledger told Bale to actually hit him in a scene from The Dark Knight

In an interview with a magazine, Christian Bale talked about The Dark Knight and shed a light on Heath Ledger’s commitment towards portraying Joker. He reportedly said that their first scene was in an interrogation room together, and he saw that Ledger is a “helluva actor” who’s completely committed to it and totally gets the tone that Christopher Nolan is trying to create with the movie.  He mentioned that they were not going for actors revealing their enjoyment of playing a “wacky caricature” and they were treating the film as a serious drama. Bale stated that “you go into character and you stay in the character”, and he loves that. He noted that he finds the idea “so ridiculous” that he loves it, and he takes that very seriously.

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Christian Bale said that Heath Ledger was “definitely embracing” their idea. He mentioned that when the late actor was in the makeup and the garb he was in character the whole time; and when he took it off he was “absolutely fantastic” company to be around. Bale explained Ledger’s process of filming the interrogation scene. He mentioned that as the audiences see in the movie, Batman starts beating the Joker and realizes that this is not his ordinary foe. Because the more he beats him the more he enjoys it and gets more satisfaction.

The Prestige star stated that Heath Ledger was behaving in a very similar fashion and was kind of “egging” him on. Christian Bale recalled that he was saying, ‘You know what, I really don’t need to actually hit you. It’s going to look just as good if I don’t.’ And Heath Ledger replied, ‘Go on. Go on. Go on….’ Bale added that Ledger was slamming himself around, and there were tiled walls inside of that set which was cracked and dented from him hurling himself into them. He noted that Heath Ledger’s commitment was total to his character.

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Heath Ledger passed away due to accidental overdoes on January 22, 2008, at the age of 28. It was months before The Dark Knight was released and received critical as well as commercial success. Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor at the 81st Academy Award for his performance as the crown prince of crime.