17 years after The Dark Knight was released, Michael Caine recalls being "floored" and "terrified" by Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker

Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight is one for the ages. He perfectly captured the sinister, unpredictable nature of Batman's arch-nemesis, defining the villain for years to come. He was so good, Michael Caine became genuinely scared of him while filming.

Looking back on Christopher Nolan's monumental Batman film for his memoir, Don't Look Back, You'll Trip Over: My Guide to Life, Caine recounted Ledger's aura. "The smeared makeup, the weird hair, the strange voice. It was chilling," he says, per NME. "Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action – I was terrified."

He adds the rest of the cast felt inspired to up their game since Ledger was so invested. It is a startling rendition of the character; menacing and eccentric and quite leftfield. Mostly known for romance films like 10 Things I Hate About You and Brokeback Mountain, Ledger being cast raised a lot of eyebrows leading up to release.

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Everyone was silenced once they saw what he and Nolan managed to conjure. Sadly, he never got to see the reaction, passing away during the post-production process in early 2008. Caine laments his young co-star.

"Heath was only 28 when he passed away. I hadn't even made Zulu when I was that age. You think of what he might have gone on to achieve, it's just heart-breaking," he writes, adding the promotional tour was particularly tough: "We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for The Dark Knight that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death."

Though he wasn't there to receive it, Ledger got the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in The Dark Knight, solidifying his legacy as an all-time great, even if his career was over far too soon. To this day, The Dark Knight trilogy is a standard-bearer for superhero films in terms of drama, performance and effects, Ledger's Joker and Christian Bale’s Batman comfortably in contention for the best depictions of the characters to date.

You can see who else might step into the roles next in our guide to the upcoming DC movies. We have a guide to The Batman 2 as well, too keep you up to date on Robert Pattinson’s caped crusader.