Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix were both offered the role of Joker in The Dark Knight, but ended up turning it down, according to the film’s casting director.
When speaking at the Nashville Film Festival (via TV Intelligentsia and Batman News), Christopher Nolan’s longtime casting director John Papsidera revealed that Heath Ledger was not the first choice for Joker in The Dark Knight. He said the script was sent to Leonardo DiCaprio first, who apparently didn’t even respond. Then, the offer went to Joaquin Phoenix, who would later win an Oscar for the same role in 2019’s Joker. Phoenix told Nolan and Papsidera at the time that he wasn’t interested in doing big movies and declined the part.
Eventually, they landed on Heath Ledger, and the rest is history. Leonardo DiCaprio went on to star in Nolan’s next project, Inception. The actor also stated last year that The Dark Knight was his favorite Nolan film. Warner Bros. reportedly pressured Nolan and his creative team to cast the Titanic star as The Riddler in the third Batman movie. The team went against this idea, since they typically developed the story for Batman first and then tried to figure out a villain. As a result, Bane made for a more logical villain in a story about an aging Batman who is physically outmatched.
And as already noted, Phoenix went on to play a completely different version of the Joker. In his two films, Joker is far less calculated. He’s more of a guy who stumbles into becoming a symbol for chaos, revolution, and anarchy, though is wildly out of his depth.
While it may be difficult to imagine DiCaprio as Joker, it’s worth reflecting on who Heath Ledger was before he was cast in the role. He was considered a pretty boy in Hollywood, not unlike DiCaprio, and it was seen as an odd choice to cast the actor for such a villainous role. Phoenix wasn’t too far beyond that class of actor, either. It seems like Nolan and Papsidera were intentionally trying to play against type and find someone who could channel an unseen part of themselves.
