Explanation of How Heath Ledger's Lip-Licking Tic as The Joker Came About in THE DARK KNIGHT

Heath Ledger’s The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was just incredible. What an awesome performance he gave, and his version of the Batman villain will go down in cinema history as one of the best and most unique.

One of the little quirks that Ledger brought to the character was a little lip-licking tic. The character was always licking his lips and it helped give the character more of a weird and creepy vibe. I dug it. But, how did that lip-licking tic come about?

Empire posted an oral history of The Dark Knight, and it’s there that prosthetics supervisor Conor O'Sullivan talked about the way he designed Joker's facial appearance with all of the scars. Ledger called the makeup effects for the character "new technology,” and explained that "the scars are made out of silicone not prosthetic." Ledger went on to say that his "whole bottom lip [was] fake."

In the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, we learn that the silicone pieces of his lip would come loose sometimes, and because of this, the actor started licking his lips to make sure they stayed in place.

Ledger just ended up leaning into that and incorporated the licking as a part of his character's creepy mannerisms.

Via: Far Out