Picked up a copy today, here it is :
FeaR HAs a faCe
In a vacant office block on the west side of LaSalle street in downtown Chicago - temporary production base of a movie that our press pass insists is called Rorys first kiss, but everyone knows is really The Dark Knight - EMPIRE is shown into a high-ceilinged, wood-panelled room, the kind of place you'd imagine very important decisions were once taken by powerful, polyester-clad men back in the 1970's. We've ostensibly been invited here to observe director Christopher Nolan at work in the street outside and the building opposite via a live feed to a flatscreen TV, but the producers have arranged something else, too.
In a small, windowless side-room stand a pair of costumes. In one corner, hanging from a sturdy, metal frame, is the new-look batsuit, all matte-black mesh and unyielding hard-plastic carapace, the first to allow the moody crime-fighter to actually turn his head. Impressive. But in the corner to its left, draped simply over a headless mannequin, is something far more exciting. Its a tatty, threadbare get-up, a dark-green waistcoat over a grey shirt, with a dark green tie at the collar. Purple trousers hang below and a long, angular purple coat sits on top. The ensemble's completed by a pair of purple gloves and a silver fob chain dangling from the belt. Its part Vivienne Westwood, part Alexander McQueen, part thrift-shop grunge. And its entirely The Joker.
Well, of course, not literally entirely. Later, Heath Ledger, the man who fills the suit onscreen, joins EMPIRE - sadly sans his ravaged,psycho-clown make-up. Ledgers ill-at-ease body language and propensity to mumble suggest a nervousness you might expect from some tackling such an iconic role. But everybody else EMPIRE'S talked with that day, from Nolan himself to Michael Caine, who returns as Bruce Waynes sardonic butler Alfred, descibes Ledger as "Fearless".
"Oh, i definately feared it" Ledger tells EMPIRE quietly, with a half-apologetic smile. "Although anything that makes me afraid i guess excites me at the same time. I dont know if I was fearless, but i certainly had to put on a brave face and believe that i had something up up my sleeve. Something different....."
Christopher Nolan made it quite clear that after he'd completed Batman Begins that he had no intention of making a sequel. But then, while shooting his next movie, The Prestige, something surprising happened : Nolan found himself replaying Batman Begins' final dialogue exchange in his head, the moment when good copper Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) talks of a criminal with " a taste for the theatrics" and hands Batman (Christian Bale) a playing card adorned with the smile-snarl face of a Joker. And Nolan found himself wanting to make a sequel, if only to see The Joker done his way.
"The way Batman Begins ended was intended not so much as sequel bait" Nolan insists, "but to create a level of excitment at the end of the movie. Ultimately, the sequel happened because we got caught up in that process of imagining how you would see The Joker through the prism of what we did in the first film". And how is The Joker seen through that prism?
"Indescribable, really. Not to sound evasive - it actually is quite difficult to explain, but all i can really say is Heaths not doing any paticular thing, He's just inhabiting the character in very much the way i'd hoped from a psychological perspective. He really created something that i think is going to be quite terrifying."
Throughout EMPIRES time noodling about on The Dark Knights set nobody seems confident enough to say precisely how The Joker will be portrayed in this film. A "Prologue" sequence revealing something of this mysterious villains origin (various versions of which have been presented over the years in the comic-books) will be screened ahead of I am legend on its US release later this month, and is likely to appear in the UK, too, come the latter films January release. Even so, Ledger himself quips that "I feel like i'll be assassinated if i tell you something wrong" so when asked how much we'll see in the film of the man who becomes The Joker, he merely says that " Most of the villains in the Chris Nolan style of Batman films are normal people......or once were normal people".
Ok, thats part 1 - taking a break now, more to come......
FeaR HAs a faCe
In a vacant office block on the west side of LaSalle street in downtown Chicago - temporary production base of a movie that our press pass insists is called Rorys first kiss, but everyone knows is really The Dark Knight - EMPIRE is shown into a high-ceilinged, wood-panelled room, the kind of place you'd imagine very important decisions were once taken by powerful, polyester-clad men back in the 1970's. We've ostensibly been invited here to observe director Christopher Nolan at work in the street outside and the building opposite via a live feed to a flatscreen TV, but the producers have arranged something else, too.
In a small, windowless side-room stand a pair of costumes. In one corner, hanging from a sturdy, metal frame, is the new-look batsuit, all matte-black mesh and unyielding hard-plastic carapace, the first to allow the moody crime-fighter to actually turn his head. Impressive. But in the corner to its left, draped simply over a headless mannequin, is something far more exciting. Its a tatty, threadbare get-up, a dark-green waistcoat over a grey shirt, with a dark green tie at the collar. Purple trousers hang below and a long, angular purple coat sits on top. The ensemble's completed by a pair of purple gloves and a silver fob chain dangling from the belt. Its part Vivienne Westwood, part Alexander McQueen, part thrift-shop grunge. And its entirely The Joker.
Well, of course, not literally entirely. Later, Heath Ledger, the man who fills the suit onscreen, joins EMPIRE - sadly sans his ravaged,psycho-clown make-up. Ledgers ill-at-ease body language and propensity to mumble suggest a nervousness you might expect from some tackling such an iconic role. But everybody else EMPIRE'S talked with that day, from Nolan himself to Michael Caine, who returns as Bruce Waynes sardonic butler Alfred, descibes Ledger as "Fearless".
"Oh, i definately feared it" Ledger tells EMPIRE quietly, with a half-apologetic smile. "Although anything that makes me afraid i guess excites me at the same time. I dont know if I was fearless, but i certainly had to put on a brave face and believe that i had something up up my sleeve. Something different....."
Christopher Nolan made it quite clear that after he'd completed Batman Begins that he had no intention of making a sequel. But then, while shooting his next movie, The Prestige, something surprising happened : Nolan found himself replaying Batman Begins' final dialogue exchange in his head, the moment when good copper Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) talks of a criminal with " a taste for the theatrics" and hands Batman (Christian Bale) a playing card adorned with the smile-snarl face of a Joker. And Nolan found himself wanting to make a sequel, if only to see The Joker done his way.
"The way Batman Begins ended was intended not so much as sequel bait" Nolan insists, "but to create a level of excitment at the end of the movie. Ultimately, the sequel happened because we got caught up in that process of imagining how you would see The Joker through the prism of what we did in the first film". And how is The Joker seen through that prism?
"Indescribable, really. Not to sound evasive - it actually is quite difficult to explain, but all i can really say is Heaths not doing any paticular thing, He's just inhabiting the character in very much the way i'd hoped from a psychological perspective. He really created something that i think is going to be quite terrifying."
Throughout EMPIRES time noodling about on The Dark Knights set nobody seems confident enough to say precisely how The Joker will be portrayed in this film. A "Prologue" sequence revealing something of this mysterious villains origin (various versions of which have been presented over the years in the comic-books) will be screened ahead of I am legend on its US release later this month, and is likely to appear in the UK, too, come the latter films January release. Even so, Ledger himself quips that "I feel like i'll be assassinated if i tell you something wrong" so when asked how much we'll see in the film of the man who becomes The Joker, he merely says that " Most of the villains in the Chris Nolan style of Batman films are normal people......or once were normal people".
Ok, thats part 1 - taking a break now, more to come......
t: 
