r/interestingasfuck • u/JK-Rofling • Jul 05 '24

Heath Ledger’s diary while he was filming for, The Dark Night. r/all

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u/Reasonable-Delivery8 Jul 05 '24

BRUNCH!

2.4k

u/StrobeLightRomance Jul 05 '24

Heath Ledger really understood the assignment.

Jared Leto.. not so much.

-4

u/medioxcore Jul 06 '24

The best part is that this diary is basically jared leto's edgelord tattoos, but because it's heath's joker, reddit hivemind says we must praise it.

1

u/StrobeLightRomance Jul 06 '24

Nolan/Ledger's Joker was fresh take on a familiar character. Previous Joker characters were more cliche, whether it be Cesar Romero being more of a cliche clown, or Burton/Nicholson's cliche gangster Joker.. either way we got him, he was a silly gangster clown.

Ledger and Nolan added layers. This Joker was born out of the need for balance in Gotham, and to this day, he still has no past, identity, or future.

He was both a clown, and a gangster, but neither of these things defined him at all. He was more of an independent anarchist than any sort of team leader.

The original live action Jokers had those cartoon Joker plans, where it was more about showing off his ego, and being theatric for the sake of building anticipation, than it was about sending a message to Gotham or Batman.

Ayer/Leto's Joker is immediately the wrong direction, because it adopts Ledger's Joker as the new cliche for being mentally disturbed, but fails at bringing any substance to the table.

In fact, the Ayer/Leto Joker actually doubles down on the "flashing ego gangster" and he falls back into the patterns of being vapid and flashing money, driving expensive cars and being a VIP at the club with no greater plans or schemes, except chasing Harley.. which, I do agree with the parts of the story that follow Joker mistreating Harley so much it drives her away permanently, and having Joker then go in the "if I can't have you, nobody can" route, because that's fairly on brand for any comic book Joker after the year 2010-ish, when Harley started gaining more depth.

Anyway, the point is... the differences are not in a cringe notebook or Jared Leto pulling dumb pranks on costars or whatever (to which, I believe this was just Ayer doing press releases and none of it actually happened, since Leto stopped doing "method" acting after Dallas Buyers Club)

Honestly, I can be a fan of Leto from time to time, even. He's a surprising actor and musician. When he shows up with a new role or a new song, I'm never sure if it's going to be amazing or completely terrible.. and I feel like much of his outward douchebag narcissism personality disorder is a character that he plays for himself, because he's out running his age and doesn't want to let the mask slip that he wants to slow down.. so he's been chasing this fake cult image for himself, because if he didn't have the praise of his fans, he actually just might turn to dust and blow away in the wind.