WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Batman, now playing in theaters.
To develop the new look of the Joker, The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves and makeup artist Michael Marino turned to the era of silent movies for inspiration.
The character design of Barry Keoghan's Joker was inspired by the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs. "It's like Phantom of the Opera," Reeves told Variety. "He has a congenital disease where he can't stop smiling and it's horrific. His face is half-covered through most of the film."
This idea that Joker's look was natural and not created through an accident or some kind of trauma, makes The Batman's version different from many previous live-action Jokers. "It's not about some version where he falls into a vat of chemicals and his face is distorted, or what [Christopher] Nolan did, where there's some mystery to how he got these scars carved into his face," Reeves said. "What if this guy from birth had this disease and he was cursed? He had this smile that people stared at that was grotesque and terrifying. Even as a child, people looked at him with horror, and his response was to say, 'Okay, so a joke was played on me,' and this was his nihilistic take on the world."
The Man Who Laughs was an adaptation of a novel by Victor Hugo and starred Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, a man whose face was fixed in a permanent grin. The Joker was originally created in 1940 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson for Batman #1, and the three creators stated that Veidt's appearance in the movie originally inspired the look of the character.
According to Reeves, the version of the Joker that is seen in Arkham State Hospital in The Batman is a "pre-Joker Joker," and his introduction to the story doesn't mean he's going to be in any sequel. "I don't know that the Joker would be in the next movie," he explained, "but I can tell you that here's what you're seeing, is an early days version of this character, and trouble, as always, is brewing in Gotham."
Another scene with Keoghan was filmed for the movie and saw the Joker meet Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight. The scene was ultimately cut because Reeves "didn't think that within the larger narrative it worked, that it was necessary." There is still hope of it appearing on a future home release though.
The Batman is in theaters now.
Source: Variety