How did heath ledger build his joker personality?

Question

i heard many rumors of how he made his insane persona. one of them being he stayed a week or 2 in a S****y motel without leaving.

Answer 1

yeah i heard that he locked himself up in a hotel room for a month, which was when he started the beginning phases of the character of the joker and how his voice would sound like and whatnot. he also had a 'joker diary' where he drew a few pictures and wrote down what the joker would think was "funny" like AIDS and sadistic stuff.  

Answer 2

his doctor gave him the wrong prescription and he got pissed so he transformed to the joker, jk that was rele mean, i didnt mean that heath dont be mad, i didnt hear any rumors hes just a rele good actor

Answer 3

I heard that he just locked himself in the hotel and watched all the old batman cartoons with the joker and the one with jack nicholson.

Answer 4

well,

he did lock him self in a motel, but for a while, with nothing but the clothes on his back,

and he also spent some days at a phyc hospital too see how crazy people acted.

and he just manages to be the best freaking actor in the WORLD!

Answer 5

idk how he did

that might be the way

but whatever it was

it was ummmm ayyyyyy zinnnggg

lol

seriously

i mean wow

Answer 6

He spent a few weeks in a hotel writing down tons of things in a little book the joker would find funny. He tried to really understand the character which lead to problems sleeping, just like Jack Nicholson warned him it would.

Answer 7

Here's an excerpt from an interview last year with him, after filming.

IESB: You're going right from I'm Not There where you have to put your spin on a character set up by other actors and right into Batman where the Joker has been done by not only Jack Nicholson but Cesar Romero, etc as well as the comics. Does it compare at all?

LEDGER: I really don't know. It's like chalk and cheese. My preparation process for this and my process for the Joker are completely different. I mean, for the Joker I locked myself away in a hotel room for six weeks. I just formulated a voice and a posture and found a real psychology behind the Joker. I really put a lot of work into it. And the experience also on a production scale, by the way, is obviously a completely different shoot. Batman is just such a machine. It's huge and I've never worked on anything that big. And the movie is going to be surprisingly good! It's far exceeded my expectations.