Sorry, but Heath Ledger didn’t improvise that Joker scene

The Dark Knight came out way back in 2008 but is remembered to this day as one of the best Batman movies ever made, one of the best sequels ever made, and to some one of the best films ever made, point blank. A lot of thanks is due to actors Christian Bale, who played the duel role of Bruce Wayne/Batman with the perfect mix of suave smarminess and gravel-voiced intensity; and Heath Ledger, who was terrifying and hilarious as the Joker.

Ledger’s performance in particular has become iconic, to the point where there are persistent myths about it. But you can’t believe everything you hear on the internet.

No, Heath Ledger didn’t improvise the Joker’s frustration during the hospital scene

In fact, it was rehearsed “about 12 times”

Towards the end of The Dark Knight, when the Joker’s reign of terror is at its height, the Joker blows up a hospital. There’s a bit where he’s leaving the building and gets frustrated as the explosions seem to stop. He spreads his hands in a “what the hell” gesture and clicks the detonator a bunch more times. When the explosions start up again, he gets into a school bus and hightails it out of there. It’s a terrific scene, one of those movie moments you want to rewatch instantly.

For years, the rumor was that the explosions were not supposed to stop, and that Ledger just improvised his way through the technical hitch until they started up again. This was never true. There’s a special feature on the home video release for the movie called “Gotham Uncovered: Creation of a Scene,” where director Christopher Nolan states very clearly that the scene was extensively rehearsed. “Heath was such a perfectionist and managed to be so precise in what he was doing, which was essentially because this was obviously a one-take thing,” the director explained.

In fact, as you can see in the video below, the hospital scene was pre-visualized beforehand. No part of it was improvised, and fans have known that since the DVD release in 2008. Yet this rumor persisted for well over a decade.

This Joker rumor remains widespread to this day

That’s how convincing Heath Ledger was

It’s hard to tell where the rumor started, but it was popular for years on message boards and forums and was popping off on TikTok as recently as 2021, when a video reiterating the false claim racked up tens of millions of views within the space of a month.

Even before our current age of deepfakes and AI-generated newsreels, the internet has never been known as the first port of call for reliable information, MakeUseOf.com obviously excepted. But this rumor is pretty harmless, and there’s a way for the cast and crew of The Dark Knight to take it as a compliment. People were so convinced by Heath Ledger’s performance that they were willing to believe he was improvising during a scene where nothing was left to chance. If you think about it, it starts to seem really silly — of course, Ledger wasn’t improvising through an explosion; a technical glitch like that could have put everyone’s safety at risk, and the crew would have taken it extremely seriously — but movies can trick people into believing the impossible is possible. That’s movie magic.

I apologize if I’ve drained some of the magic out of this movie for you. But if it helps, there are plenty of other bits from famous movies that actually were improvised.

Some of the most famous lines in movie history were improvised

Sometimes actors become writers for a second

There are a shocking number of iconic movie lines that were more or less made up on set, including:

• “Alright, alright, alright.” Matthew McConaughey made up this famous line for his first screen performance in Dazed and Confused. It’s since been his calling card.
• “I’m the king of the world!” Leonardo DiCaprio and director James Cameron tried lots of different lines for the moment in Titanic where Jack rides on the prow of the famous ship. This is the one that stuck.
• “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. [weird creepy hiss]” The first part of that line from The Silence of the Lambs was scripted, but Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter) added the weird creepy hiss, which is easily the most famous part.
• “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Humphrey Bogart ad-libbed this line on the set of Casablanca, and it ended up getting used as a runner throughout the film.
• “Here’s Johnny!” Jack Nicholson got the bright idea to reference The Johnny Carson Show when he axed through the door in The Shining, and people have been quoting him ever since.

So maybe it wasn’t that hard to believe that Ledger improvised that Joker scene. That kind of thing has happened before.

Future Batmen have their work cut out for them

Since The Dark Knight came out, Warner Bros. kicked off a whole new series of Batman movies with Robert Pattinson under the cowl. And James Gunn has successfully launched a whole new DC Cinematic Universe, which is due to incorporate yet another Batman at some point.

With all of those Batmen running around, the Joker will definitely show up at some point, and he’s going to have a very tough act to follow in Ledger. Maybe whoever next plays the Clown Prince of Crime can improvise some new iconic movie moment and finally make honest fans out of all of us rumor-mongers.