Heath Ledger’s Joker Diary Details the Work Late Actor Put Into Bringing Comic Villain to Life

Although the Joker in The Dark Knight was not Heath Ledger's final film role before his death in 2008, it is certainly one that has become iconic in the years since.

As it turns out, he kept a journal while working on his take on the classic Gotham bad guy. In the years since his death, images of the journal have circulated and captivated fans of his work.

The late Australian actor's take on the Joker blew away audiences as Ledger attempted to embody an agent of chaos with the role.

Back in 2015, The Journal referenced a clip from the 2015 documentary Too Young To Die, which makes reference to Ledger's Joker diary.

His father flips through the book, which has a scrapbook quality to it. There are scribblings of various bits of information pertaining to the character interspersed with cut-outs of images that seem to have informed Ledger's performance. The outlet makes note of a hyena photo, which the writer speculates may have been used to inspire the villain's laughter.

Ledger's dad, Kim, gave some perspective into the choices used for Ledger's character in the movie, along with some of the choices that were used in the film. For instance, the nurse's outfit he wears upon visiting Harvey Dent in the hospital prior to blowing it up is a part of Ledger's childhood.

Kim stated, "The hospital room [scene] was kind of intriguing because his sister Kate used to dress him up in a nurse's outift. He looked pretty funny in a nurse's outfit as a kid, and he looked pretty funny in a nurse's outfit in the film."

More details of Ledger's Joker diary were uploaded on social media and went viral on Reddit's r/interestingasf--- sub.

In the slideshow of images, the diary shows pasted images of Joker's test makeup which the actor pasted in the book. It seems he returned to the journal to update it, as the first picture reads: "8 months ago wrapped now!"

The next slide shows the scars beneath his makeup, followed by another picture that looks like a less-muddied up version of the final makeup look used for the character's on-camera depiction.

Another excerpt reads: "Things that make me laugh," which is then followed by a list. It reads:

• Blind babies
• Land mines
• AIDS
• Beloved pets in road accidents
• Statistics
• Pencil Cases
• BRUNCH!
• The periodic table of elements

There are snippets from the comics and other descriptions of what the character would be thinking. Another page also indicates what the origin of Joker's scars really as there's a reference to someone, who, during a bad hallucinogenic trip, might dig out their own eyeballs with a spoon after staring into the mirror too long and not liking what they see.

Maybe, upon being faced with how disgusting the world is, the Joker carved a permanent smile into his face so he never thinks about the constant injustices that are always going on and the weird rules human beings set up for themselves.

Another highlight from Ledger's Joker diary is that he seems to have written out pieces of his own dialogue into the book, like when he talks about how "everything burns" and chaos being the only thing that's "fair" in life. He also wrote out his dialogue from the scene where he accosts Gotham's crime families where he proposes to "kill the Batman."

He also included images of Malcolm McDowell's character from Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Much like Joker, Alex in the 1971 cult classic is a morally bankrupt sociopath.

The last entry in the Joker diary shows some scribblings, along with a single message: "BYE BYE" written over it in a silver sharpie.