PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2021-08-17 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Heath Ledger Did Not Improvise in the Hospital Scene in 'The Dark Knight' After a 'Mishap' (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • On July 27, 2021, a new TikTok video was posted that claimed actor Heath Ledger completely improvised the hospital explosion scene in the role of the Joker for the 2008 Batman film, The Dark Knight. The video was viewed more than 30 million times in less than one month. It was published by @learnwithsteve: This was false. Ledger did not completely improvise during the hospital scene, nor was there a little mishap on the set that caused the timing of explosions to malfunction. While it's true that Ledger likely brought a bit of his own flair to the scene, it was not completely improvised after a problem occurred. Screen Rant previously debunked this claim in January 2020, as did Showbiz Cheat Sheet in June 2021. Another video with millions of views also made false claims about Ledger purportedly improvising during the scene. In the YouTube description, the user wrote: The explosion really failed but they didn't afford to stop shooting so Heath just did what he does best. This was not true. In reality, director Christopher Nolan said that the film's crew took great care to ensure that every moment of the hospital explosion scene was rehearsed endlessly. This was the opposite of the idea that Ledger, then a major movie star, improvised during the dangerous scene. In a behind-the-scenes video also mentioned in Showbiz Cheat Sheet's reporting, Nolan walked through the entire creation of the scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUFiNuRAmmc&t=28s Nolan, who also co-wrote the script and served as the film's producer, said that special effects supervisor Chris Corbould added a little beat where the first set of explosions stops: In other words, the pause between explosions was planned. Nolan noted that the cast and crew carefully rehearsed the scene around 12 times, as they only had one shot at getting it right: Nolan also mentioned that multiple camera angles didn't make it into the final cut, all because he felt it was important to show the fact that we had done it for real and that Heath had done it for real. When the scene came together for the movie, only two exterior shots of the hospital explosion made it in the film, at the 0:06 and 0:55 marks in this clip: Ledger died in 2008 before The Dark Knight was released. In 2009, he won a posthumous Oscar for his acting, which members of his family accepted for him. In sum, it's false that Ledger improvised the hospital explosion scene in The Dark Knight. In reality, it was perhaps one of the most carefully planned and rehearsed scenes in the entire film. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url