Movie News

It's no laughing matter, Ledger is a star

Mon 03 Dec 1:20 PM

Michael Caine has been moved to admit that, contrary to expectations, Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker in the new Batman film is "stunning".

Originally Caine, who plays Alfred the butler in the movie, feared that Ledger would fall some way short of the standard set by Jack Nicholson in 1989's Batman, "because you do not really want to follow Jack into anything… unless it's a nightclub". Since then, though, Caine has revised his opinion considerably.

"Heath plays him (The Joker) like an absolutely maniacal murderous psychopath," he told Empire. "You have never seen anything like it in your life.

He is very, very scary."

For his part, Ledger describes his character as an "absolute sociopath, a cold-blooded, mass-murdering clown.

"Which is fun because there are no real boundaries to what The Joker would say or do. Nothing intimidates him, and everything is a big joke. I think we all have that in us."

Well, he certainly does.