Stepping straight from his returned fame to Star Wars in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and his reprise of Joker from The Killing Joke animated film, Mark Hamill is back on top of the world of nerdom. Being a huge fan of the comic book genre as well, Hamill shows himself as not only a bona fide performer of his Joker character since 1992, but a walking encyclopedia of DC‘s original stories and characterizations.
While not an exact live-action performer of the Joker to be compared to the likes of Batman‘s Jack Nicholson, The Dark Knight‘s Heath Ledger and now Suicide Squad‘s Jared Leto, the voice performance alone has credited him as one of the most defining Jokers in media. And much like any performer of the iconic Clown Prince of Crime, opinions of others helming the parts are going to come to question.
Sitting down with Polygon, the very thing came up: what did he think of the most recent, that being Leto’s portrayal of the clown?
Turns out Hamill was in favor of him:
“I loved Let’s performance. I haven’t seen an interpretation yet that made me go ‘that was terrible’.”
Hamill also opens up how incarnations of the character will always be different and that there is no right way to do Joker:
“Everyone brings a different spin to the character and you have to look at each script separately. I don’t think there’s a definitive version of the Joker and I don’t think there can be. It’s like Hamlet, really. It’ll be constantly redefined.”
Fans will always have a bias on best interpretations, even if hearing out opinions of the very people behind the character, but Hamill really sees an art in what Joker means and keep things judgement-free. Then again, maybe he hasn’t seen Brent Spiner or Allen Enlow having their takes on the character.
Source: Polygon