Ironically, One Of The Best Jokers Was Created By The Most Controversial Batman (At The Time)

The Joker is certainly one of the most famous DC Comics characters, aside from his arch-nemesis Batman and perhaps Superman, having been portrayed by an impressive number of actors and appearing on both the big and small screen.

We've seen different takes on the character (of varying quality) in his live-action appearances, from Joaquin Phoenix 's tragic Arthur Fleck to Jack Nicholson's gangster Jack Napier to Jared Leto 's goofy clown, but there are even more versions of the Joker in the animated features.

Arguably the best of them was brought to us by none other than Mark Hamill, who absolutely nailed the character and voiced him in several animated series and video games.

The most notable of these was Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995), which also gave us the best animated Batman, voiced by the legendary Kevin Conroy, who sadly passed away on November 10, 2022.

But apparently we wouldn't have been able to witness Mark's brilliant portrayal of the mad clown if it weren't for... Michael Keaton's Batman.

Recently, during a WIRED Autocomplete interview, Hamill shared that at the time it had just been announced that Keaton would be playing the iconic superhero in Tim Burton's Batman (1989), which caused considerable outrage among fans, as Keaton was seen as a comedic actor who was completely unsuited to the role.

That's why Mark was so sure that he wouldn't get the part, as he believed that the fans would lose their minds if "they hire Luke Skywalker to play the Joker.

"This allowed the actor to be completely confident during the audition, as he decided that even if he didn't get hired, this would be "the best Joker they'll ever hear."

And it worked like a charm, giving fans the best Joker voice of all time and the actor one of his favorite characters to play.

Fans admit they were blown away when they found out it was Luke Skywalker himself who was voicing the clown, as he was completely unrecognizable in the role, but they are glad it worked out this way.

Sources: YouTube, Reddit