New York has already started a busy day in the early morning. In a four-story apartment on Bronze Street, Manhattan, the young Heath Ledger woke up from his sleep. As soon as he opened his eyes, he felt something was wrong.

In his mind, there was a sound of mosquitoes flapping his wings, "Buzzing...buzzing...", and the sound changed from small to large, gradually upgrading to huge whimpering sounds. He felt something squeezed out of his blood vessels and almost cracked his body. The sounds around him were covered with sound insulation layer blurred and deformed like electronic devices, and the patterns in his eyes kept shaking and twisting.

The skin began to get chills, and Heath Ledger could feel it twitching involuntarily. The kitten got from where it was sharp claws to scratch the raised goosebumps. The itchy and pain gradually penetrated into the bones along the pores. He wanted to touch it with his hands but couldn't touch it. He wanted to scratch it but it didn't work. He could only shake his body and rub the bones with the movement of his flesh to try to relieve itching.

This is simply an inhuman torture, and if it continues, it will definitely make him collapse.

Because this state has been happening for several years, Heath Ledger naturally knew what the problem was. He supported himself and touched a medicine bottle from the bedside table. After hesitating for less than half a second, he unscrewed the cap, poured out a few pills and stuffed them into his mouth. He swallowed it in his stomach without even drinking water.

There seemed to be psychological hints, all kinds of weird feelings in the body and mind suddenly disappeared, and the whole person became energetic, and the young and handsome genius actor returned to him.

Gradually, Heath Ledger returned to normal. He shook his head hard and his eyes fell on another item on the bedside table. It was a character script. The script of the villain in the second part of the famous director Duke Rosenberg was specially sent by the agent of the famous director Duke Rosenberg.

Although he heard the other party mention that the script was not finalized, the character would not change much. It has been a while since the character script was delivered to him. Heath Ledger has also read and studied it several times. It was a magical character. A character that can truly play!

In 1989, Jack Nicholson performed this role once and received numerous praises.

Generally speaking, if you have a special beauty in the front, most people will never encounter such a role again.

Heath Ledger originally wanted to refuse, but after reading the character script, he realized that the character's settings had changed drastically. Although both characters are called clowns, they are definitely not the same.

And the setting about the clown in this character script...how to say it, it seems impossible to describe it as crazy or stunning.

I heard that the setting of this character was written by Duke Rosenberg, and perhaps only such a special director can adapt such a special character.

Thinking of this, Heath Ledger took the script and started reading it again.

In this character script, the clown shows a kind of madness, madness without bottom lines and rules, and evil that reaches its peak.

And what is the evil that reaches the pinnacle? In the evil that reaches the pinnacle, evil is not a means, but an end. The evil that reaches the pinnacle is pure. Not for money, no matter for color, no other purpose, creating evil and performing evil is the only pursuit in itself.

The evil of the clown is such pure evil, for nothing else. He just wants to create "higher taste evil" for the city. In Heath Ledger's view, even the crime of the anonymous in "The Seven Deadly Sins" is not considered "high taste evil" because there are too many additional objects outside of evil.

Just like Batman is a knight who strictly adheres to justice and morality. The Joker is actually an evil Puritan. In his eyes, crimes for money, power, sex or any other purpose are actually blasphemy against "evil". Evil is only pure in his hands.

In the hands of the clown, evil and chaos become a work of art. He exerted evil like a painter painting or a musician composer. Therefore, from beginning to end, no matter what the situation is, he maintained a sense of arrogance and compassion as an evil demon.

At first glance, the clown's behavior in the script looks crazy and chaotic, but Heath Ledger is not difficult to analyze that this character has a fanatical pursuit to break through everyone's bottom line.

This is a crazy character!

After closing the script, Heath Ledger sat quietly on the head of the bed and thought for a while. For the past ten days, he has been considering whether to answer or not.

To be honest, he doesn't like superhero movies, so because this is Batman, hesitated until now, but the name Duke Rosenberg and the character script he sent were extremely attractive to him.

In Hollywood, how many actors don't want to work with Duke Rosenberg? That often means a comprehensive harvest of career, fame and money.

Heath Ledger is no exception, so he did not directly reject the role.

Thinking about it until now, he made a decision.

Picking up his phone, Heath Ledger called a number, "Mara, I want that character."

His agent Mara Buxbum said immediately, "I'll contact Charles Rowan and let the crew arrange your audition as soon as possible."

The sound from the phone was a little excited, and there was no agent who didn't want to be a superstar agent.

The news soon reached Duke. Although the project was not officially launched until July, it had passed the review of the Warner Bros. Review Committee. There will be no obstacles to the Dark Knight project.

Duke reminded Charles Rowan that as long as the preparations officially begin, he will be the first to arrange Heath Ledger's clown audition to give him more time to figure out the role.

But as in the past, Heath Ledger is just the Joker's first choice, not the only choice. After all, no one knows whether Heath Ledger can meet the requirements of this role now.

In addition, there are two-faced people, Harvey Dante and Duke, who also contacted Nicholas Cage's agent, probably got notification from Sofia Coppola in advance. Without seeing any character scripts and other related content, Nicholas Cage accepted the audition invitation without hesitation.

Similarly, even for Sofia Coppola's sake, Nicholas Cage would not be the only choice. If he was in the worst performance, Duke would not use it.

In this regard, there is no shortage of cast candidates. Some news about Batman's second part will inevitably spread, such as Hugh Jackman, Ryan Philip, Levi Schreibor and Josh Lucas all handed over the news through their agents, expressing their interest in the role of inspector Harvey Dent.

As the project is about to be launched, Warner Bros. has also begun some targeted publicity to let movie fans know that Batman's second part is about to start filming and production.

In mid-June, someone revealed on instant sharing and multiple film and television websites that the "Penguin Man" Oswald Chesterfield Copott will appear in this new Batman and launch an influential vote for the most suitable actor. Bob Hopkins won an absolute advantage in the vote.

Perhaps Warner Bros. had public relations in advance. Bob Hopkins said in an interview that he was very willing to play this role and was looking forward to working with Duke, calling him a "dream director."

This news has been fermenting on the Internet for a long time, and even sparked discussions among Batman fans and comic fans.

It was not until this news reached a certain level that Duke declared through his instant sharing account that he did not have the idea of ​​enabling "Mr. Penguin".

Although this disappointed some Penguin fans, it had enough publicity effect.

"The Penguin Man is not suitable for the movie, it's a bit far-fetched."

In the office, Duke and Anna Prinz, Hannah Selena and John Schwartzman were discussing some of Batman matters, especially the character Duke focused on, "It's enough for this video to have a clown."

"The setting of this character..." Anna Prinz was holding a concept picture of the clown drawn by Hanna Selena, "had been seriously out of the comics."

"Strictly speaking," John Schwartzman said, "After reading the script, I thought the whole movie was no longer comic-style. If it weren't for Batman's cloak, it wouldn't even have much to do with superhero movies."

"So, John, you have to pay attention to the photography style." Duke thought for a moment and said, "Photography should be more dark and realistic, and it looks more like a police and gangster film."

As he said that, he reached out to come to the concept picture of the clown that Anna Prinz was holding and said to his art director, "Try to make the clown's costumes and makeup look worn and sloppy, so as to avoid him looking like a refugee in the comics. The overall design should highlight the sharp and neurotic side of the character."

"I understand." Hannah Selena pointed to the concept picture and said, "This is just the first draft. I have considered it carefully. Based on the comic characters, I will learn from the styles of the anti-traditional popular master Pitt Dohti and the "father of punk" Iki Pope."

Duke nodded and said, "This is also a way to use funny performances to conceal the character. My purpose is to dig out the deeper realism of this character. For this character, dressing up as a 'clown' can be regarded as a gorgeous reappearance of the flame of life to some extent."

In the whole movie, Joker is much better than Batman. To a certain extent, Bruce Wayne is more like a super supporting role.

As time entered July, Warner Bros.'s series of reviews were completed, Duke's team gathered again, and even Christian Bale started training again, and Batman had the conditions for the project establishment.

Just after the Independence Day holiday, Warner Bros. D Comics and Duke held a press conference on the launch of the "Dark Knight" project. (To be continued)
Chapter completed!