Bat Trick

When you heard him talk about ventriloquist dummies, did you think, "Where the heck is he going with this?"
[Laughs] Well, as a director, you say, "OK, that's kind of frightening." But what you're also hearing in the actor's voice is passion and intensity.

You've said that when you see the Joker, you can almost imagine what he smells like.
Yeah, you feel like there's a grime to him. I showed Heath some Francis Bacon paintings, which have a particular smudged, smeared effect that I thought was very evocative of human decay and corruption.

To me, the most unsettling part of his performance is that tic where he licks his lips.
Yeah, it's almost like this lizard thing. It's very insidious, very creepy. Well, as with a lot of things that Heath would do, at first I thought it was a mistake. Because the prosthetics on his mouth would come a little unstuck. But then it became apparent that he'd really found something.

There are a few lines in the movie that—unintentionally, of course—conjure thoughts of Heath's death. They are just odd, small coincidences in the dialogue. Is there anything a director can do about that?
I think that the key thing about Heath's performance, as it relates to the tragedy, is that it is so utterly unlike what he was in real life. And I think that makes it much easier to watch it and enjoy the performance as he intended it.

The marketing of this movie was unusually fraught, given what happened. Did the approach change at all after his death?
No, we're just putting the film out there exactly the way we always would have, which seems like the right thing to do.

How do you feel about promoting a movie under these circumstances?
[Pause] I don't know, really. [Pause] Honestly, I don't mean to sound unhelpful, but I don't really have an answer. What I wrote in NEWSWEEK was probably the best expression of what it's been like.

Christian has expressed enthusiasm for doing a third "Batman" with you. How about it?
All I can say is that, when we finished the first film, I didn't have any intention of doing a second one. And this time, I really tried to put everything that I ever wanted to see in the Batman story into this film. I wanted to make a great sequel, because there are very few great sequels. Really, I'm thinking only "Godfather: Part II" and "The Empire Strikes Back."

Can you think of any great third films?
[Laughs] I'll leave that for you to answer.

© 2008