Potes'n'Roll

MTV: What do you think of another actor, Heath Ledger, playing the Joker in next summer's "The Dark Knight"?

Nicholson: Let me be the way I'm not in interviews. I'm furious. I'm furious. [He laughs.] They never asked me about a sequel with the Joker. I know how to do that! Nobody ever asked me.

MTV: It was never brought up?

Nicholson: No. It's like, in any area, you can't believe the reasons things do or don't happen. Not asking me how to do the sequel is that kind of thing. Maybe it's not a mistake. Maybe it was the right thing, but to be candid, I'm furious.

MTV: I'm surprised to hear you sounding competitive about a role like that.

Nicholson: Well, the Joker comes from my childhood. That's how I got involved with it in the first place. It's a part I always thought I should play.

MTV: Will you see the new film?

Nicholson: I'm not inclined to watch it because of what I said. But if it's a good movie, I'll catch up with it somewhere. I don't think they ever really captured Tim Burton's spirit [since he stopped being involved]. They kind of drove the franchise into the ground. Tim Burton's a genius. He had the right take on it. That's why I did the movie. I did the movie based on a single conversation with him. We both come from the cartoon world originally. We had similar ideas. Tim said [the Joker] should have a humorous dark side to him. [Burton is] one of the great moviemakers. I think the world of him. He's the most unassuming man. And he doesn't feel pressure. That's what I love about him. Once he's in there, he's smiling making the movie. That's it!

Tommy Lee Jones Approves of Aaron Eckhart's Role in The Dark Knight

Hot on the heels of Jack Nicholson's expressed outrage about being passed over for the role of the Joker in The Dark Knight, another former Batman film villain expresses his opinion about having his role taken over. In a discussion with MTV Movies Blog, Tommy Lee Jones said he wouldn't want to play the role again.

When first asked about Harvey Dent appearing in TDK, Jones expressed surprise. "Really? I thought he died." Apparently, Jones was unaware that when Chris Nolan took over the franchise with Batman Begins, he was starting fresh, and cutting any ties to the series of films that began with Tim Burton's Batman, and ran through the very campy Batman & Robin, with Jones appearing in the third film, Batman Forever.

When asked specifically about his successor, Aaron Eckhart, Jones said "I've worked with him. He's an awfully good guy." He continued, "Aaron is a good actor. He can take care of himself."

Jones did offer one final caveat to Eckhart. "That make-up, however, is difficult," he said, offering a rare grin.

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.

IESB: Were there any specific comics you based your version off of?

LEDGER: Well, The Killing Joke is the one that's being passed around and Arkham Asylum kind of. But I really tried to read the comics and put it down. You know, I was a big fan of Jack Nicholson - still am - his portrayal of the Joker was perfect for Tim Burton's world and if Tim Burton had come to me and he was doing the sequel and he asked me to play the Joker in his movie, I wouldn't do it. I couldn't. Because you couldn't touch what Jack Nicholson did. It would be a crime. When Chris came to me, I'd already seen Batman Begins and I really liked it. Because I'd already seen it, I already knew the world, which he had created. I instantly knew of an angle. I instantly knew a way into this character. A way to create a character to fit into this world and so it was fairly immediate. I've got straight away the fact that we're both on the same page in terms of where we want it to be. But I guess we have to wait and see. I haven't seen any of it yet.

When I told Burton that Nicholson had seemed almost upset about Heath Ledger taking over as the Joker in the upcoming film, the director laughed it off saying, “That’s what’s great about him. He could be not serious but he also could be serious. That’s what gives him an amazing quality as an actor and a person.”

But just because it’s laughs all around when it comes to Burton and Nicholson doesn’t mean the “Sweeney Todd” director doesn’t harbor some resentment over how his “Batman” films were treated.

“I was just always amazed that people used to rag on my movies,” he said. “Nobody really acknowledged the fact that [’Batman’] was slightly different at the time from other comic book movies. So lay off, will you? They would get on my case all the time and it’s still kind of that way today,” he said.

SOURCE: MTV MOVIE BLOG.

LES CHAUSSETTES DU JOKER !!!!!