Mark Hamill Talks about Being Cast as Joker and How The Backlash of Michael Keaton's Batman Gave Him Confidence

Mark Hamill will go down in history as one of the best versions of The Joker that has been brought to life in a Batman project. His Joker from Batman: The Animated Series is iconic, but Hamill explains that his casting would have never happened without Michael Keaton’s casting as Batman in Tim Burton’s 1989 film.

Hamill recalled during a recent Wired video interview, that because of the backlash against Keaton’s casting as Bruce Wayne aka Batman, he was given a boost of confidence when he auditioned for the role. He said:

“I just read for it. I had a confidence that really helped me because there was this big outcry that Michael Keaton was gonna play Batman. ‘Oh, he’s Mr. Mom, he’s a comedy actor.’ I mean, they hadn’t even seen him [in the role] and they didn’t realize how great he would become. But, there was great controversy.”

Keaton had to endure a lot of hate from fans at the time, but lucky for him social media wasn’t a thing! If that would have happened in today’s world, the hate would have been amplified so much more! But, watching Keaton overcome that nastiness to become the incredible fan-favorite Batman that he is gave Hamill the confidence he needed that fans would be willing to accept that Luke Skywalker could play the Joker. He said:

“When I went in [for the Joker role], I thought, ‘You think they’re gonna hire Luke Skywalker to play the Joker? The fans will lose their minds!' I was so sure that I couldn’t be cast. I was completely relaxed. A lot of times there’s performance anxiety because you want the part, here I knew I couldn’t get the part, so, who cares? I drove out of the parking lot thinking, ‘That’s the best Joker they’ll ever hear, and it’s too bad they can’t cast me.’ And as soon as they did cast me, it reversed. I was like, ‘Oh no, I can’t do this!'”

Hamill went on to say The Joker is one of his favorite characters to play and explained why saying it was “because he’s insane, and because he’s insane, he’s never boring. It’s just fun to play a character who creates chaos everywhere he goes.”

Now Hamill’s Joker is legendary.