Is that Person Really Heath Ledger?
Movies are the pinnacle of an artistic statement — because movies incorporate many other arts forms, like music, poetry, painting, etc. Some movies and movie performances fade away from time, but some cinematic experiences (i.e., Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker, in the film The Dark Knight) linger forever in our memory. I’m here to dissect that role, and not to praise it. Many like me have praised that role and its performance.
The first question I’m going ask — and then answer consecutively — is this: Is the person who performed that role — was the actor Heath Ledger himself? Or was it a person that looked like Heath Ledger? ~The answer is: No, the person was the actor Heath Ledger himself.
Is the Voice Heath Ledger’s?
Here is the secret and the secret trick: The voice is not Heath Ledger’s. The director of the movie searched voice databases to find out a peculiar nasal tone of voice. The director made that voice read aloud the entire script of the movie. They then played the recorded audio performance to Heath Ledger.
What this did is that it imprinted a falsified magic tonal picture in Heath Ledger’s brain — so much so that he couldn’t recover from that hit for a long time.
How Heath Ledger Acted Thereafter in the Movie
Once the voice was chosen from the audio database, and the voice was ‘shown’ and demonstrated to — filming began — and it progressed in the dream~factory industrial way — as all movies get filmed.
Once photography and filming was complete, Heath Ledger’s original voice was erased, and this person — with the nasal tone of voice — was brought into the studio to do voice over work on Heath Ledger’s acting.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, Heath Ledger is no more, and we can not get to know what he would have thought about the thesis of this article. Does knowing the secret disallow you to enjoy Heath Ledger’s performance in the movie? ~Not really.
But it indeed robs away magic from that performance. That’s for sure.
