Actor Jonathan Majors has high praise for Heath Ledger’s legendary portrayal of the Joker in one of the greatest comic book movies ever made.
Per Entertainment Weekly, the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania star found inspiration in Heath Ledger’s performance and physicality as Joker in The Dark Knight.
“Okay, first of all, he’s gorgeous. He’s got that f**king jawline, and he didn’t give a f**k. He threw his body around. He was so full. And I went, ‘I’m coming for that. I’m inspired.’ It takes a lot, you feel me? To be inspired.”
He found The Dark Knight especially moving because it audaciously addresses the plural nature of existence, contrasting darkness with light and exploring life’s shadows.
The Ant-Man star opened up about experiences in his youth that inspire his artistry today. He described what he learned growing up in an environment inhabited by people moving in and out of prison. From an early age, Majors was exposed to the complexity of the human condition, observing that people often oscillate between good and evil depending on circumstances. Ledger captured and embodied this truth in his iconic rendition of Joker with Promethean boldness. Majors is still in awe.
“I knew the complexity of the guys I grew up with. Yeah, you did do that, but you also did this. And what I saw in Heath, and in everything he did, was: it’s this and that.“
Majors’ father abandoned their family and re-entered his life 17 years later. Later, he acted out as a teen leading to an arrest for shoplifting, a suspension from high school, and thrown out of his family home. At one point, Majors worked two jobs and lived in his car. However, he says the transformative inspiration he drew from Joker fueled his passion for acting. He went on to study at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and earned an MFA from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.
Majors says he hopes to inspire others the way that Ledger inspired him.
“I’m trying to give as many bastions of hope for those who were like me, man. We are extremely complex if we allow ourselves to be, and if you can be touched in certain places that you don’t even know, you’ll be better.”
The star’s latest role will be more terrifying than inspiring, with Kang the Conqueror set to raise hell when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania comes to theaters next week.