Would Benedict Cumberbatch be a good cast for the Joker?

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Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Ezekiel said:
Silentpony said:
He's too handsome
Really? I think he looks weird.

A lot of the English actors doing American accents sound fake. Daredevil, Tyrion Lannister, James Norton from Happy Valley in Black Mirror... You can't suggest this without knowing if he can do it.


I knew it! Faaake!

"Suere. Suere, jest eh, wait, theare."
The actor playing Tyrion Lannister [Peter Dinklage] is an American from New Jersey doing a British Accent.

 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Ezekiel said:
Samtemdo8 said:
The actor playing Tyrion Lannister [Peter Dinklage] is an American from New Jersey doing a British Accent.
Oh yeah, that's what I meant to say. I originally wanted to say that the reverse is also true, but it wasn't really important, and then I forgot to remove the character. Of course Game of Thrones doesn't have American accents. His English accent is pretty unconvincing at times.
Personally its more obvious hearing an American doing a British Accent than a British Person doing an American Accent.

I mean Tim Roth from Reservoir Dogs pulled it off imo:

 

Asita

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Cumberbatch? Nah. I could see him as the Riddler, maybe even Two-Face or Clayface, but not the Joker. I like Cumberbatch well enough as an actor, but I feel that if he was to do the Joker it would have to be a rehash of Ledger's Joker, and I see that as fairly played out by the end of the Dark Knight.
 

bastardofmelbourne

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This thread got interesting! A lot of people have different ideas of how the Joker should look.

If I'd been involved in the DCEU, I would've told them to avoid the Joker entirely for that exact reason. It's very hard to know if your Joker is going to hit everyone's buttons before the fact. It's a gamble. Ledger paid off; Leto didn't, in my opinion.

Sonmi said:
If someone should be the Joker, it's obviously Willem Dafoe.
Oh wow, that's actually a really good one. Pity he's already been cast as Vulko for Aquaman.

Samtemdo8 said:
Jim Carrey is a better choice.
He's already been the Riddler, though. I think he could definitely do it, but I'd just be mentally comparing him to a role he played twenty years ago.

Interesting thought: the first thing that popped into my head when you said Jim Carrey is that he's too old. Willem Dafoe has the same problem. They've both got ten or twenty years on Ben Affleck.

But I just thought - the DCEU Batman is a veteran already, with twenty years of crime fighting and silver hair at his temples. It would make sense for his Joker to be just as old and battered. And it would give their relationship the impression of a decades-old rivalry, like the two of them have been waging this long war and it's worn both of them out, but neither one is willing to give it up.
 

twistedmic

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I can't see Cumberbatch as the Joker, he just doesn't give off the right vibe for someone like the Joker. While I've only seen him in Into Darkness and trailers for Doctor Strange Cumberbatch comes off as very cool, calm (mostly), methodical and fairly restrained. Those do not sound like the correct words to use when describing the Joker.

I can, however, see Cumberbatch as successfully portraying either Mr. Freeze or the Riddler. He might even be able to play Deadshot, if Will Smith did not already have that role.


Gustaf Skarsg?rd, from History Channel's Vikings (images of him as the Viking Floki in spoiler tags)

is someone that I can see as playing (a possibly older) Joker.
 

Asita

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twistedmic said:
I can't see Cumberbatch as the Joker, he just doesn't give off the right vibe for someone like the Joker. While I've only seen him in Into Darkness and trailers for Doctor Strange Cumberbatch comes off as very cool, calm (mostly), methodical and fairly restrained. Those do not sound like the correct words to use when describing the Joker.
I'll give you two more: Sherlock Holmes, Smaug (and for bonus points, here's the motion capture).
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Sonmi said:
Cumberbatch is too stoic/not expressive enough.
Agreed, he's too, well, British. He's good at playing a intelligent, restrained, coldly calculating sociopath. That can be creepy in its own right, but it's decidely not the Joker.
If someone should be the Joker, it's obviously Willem Dafoe.
That's good tho.
sanquin said:
If we're pitching idea's why not Nicolas Cage? He's got the 'crazy' part down at least! :D
Shit, that's also really good.
bastardofmelbourne said:
But I just thought - the DCEU Batman is a veteran already, with twenty years of crime fighting and silver hair at his temples. It would make sense for his Joker to be just as old and battered. And it would give their relationship the impression of a decades-old rivalry, like the two of them have been waging this long war and it's worn both of them out, but neither one is willing to give it up.
I can get behind this. Leto's Joker didn't really strike me as someone who is THE nemesis to Batman. More a crazy, ultraviolent gang leader than the archenemy who can drive Bats right to the edge in a way no other villain can. Maybe it's the seeming age disparity between them combined with Leto Joker's gangsta pimp style. Maybe it's because we haven't seen enough interaction between them yet to make a judgment. Maybe it's just the lingering phantom of Ledger, who IMO did a much better job at embodying that aspect of Joker, despite their in-movie rivalry not being old at all.
 

Tanis

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Cumberbatch as The Joker?
NO...just doesn't fit his acting style.

Cumberbatch as Mr. Freeze?
O, yes...I could totally see that.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Here's a left of field suggestion but could he perhaps play Vandal Savage? Him and Ra's Al-Ghul are the two who pop into my head when I see Cumberpatch.
 

FalloutJack

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No, I don't think so. I would rather he put his best Sherlock foot forward as the Riddler.
 

JUMBO PALACE

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bastardofmelbourne said:
But I just thought - the DCEU Batman is a veteran already, with twenty years of crime fighting and silver hair at his temples. It would make sense for his Joker to be just as old and battered. And it would give their relationship the impression of a decades-old rivalry, like the two of them have been waging this long war and it's worn both of them out, but neither one is willing to give it up.
This would indeed be pretty fun to see. You could play up the same almost homoerotic love relationship the Joker and Batman are frequently portrayed as having like an old married couple. I'm picturing a wrinkled and worn out Joker, addicted to pain killers from all of the beatings he's gotten throughout the years coming back in a Death of the Family style final attempt to bring Batman down with him.

That being said, what I really want to see at the end of the day is the (in my opinion) perfect mix of theatricality and evil Mark Hamil's Joker had. That version of the Joker plus Batman from Morrison's RIP days or from Hush would be my ideal movie. I want to see the Joker cracking jokes, setting up gift wrapped bombs, and filling the screen with the black humor he's famous for and Batman actually jumping from rooftops and acting like the acrobat he should be.

There have been a few good ideas in this thread. Defoe would crush the role and I don't Cumberbatch would be as bad as some people in this thread think. Based on looks alone I don't think you can exclude Hiddleston from the running

 

Hazy992

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He's not a good cast for anything, Benylin Bramblepatch fucking sucks
 

RedDeadFred

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While I do enjoy me some Cumberbatch, I think he has a far too subdued personality in his roles to play the Joker.

I'd like to see Daniel Day-Lewis take the role simply because he's one of the greatest actors ever and I know he can play villains very well. I'd say he could do it as a more crazy version of his Bill the Butcher performance, but to be honest, he's a good enough actor that he could probably reinvent the role to be something entirely new and that new version would be heralded as the best one ever.
 

happyninja42

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MrCalavera said:
Unfortunately, Jim Carrey already delivered a stellar, stellar performance as DC villain:
Though, now that i think about it, of all characters in DC, Cumberbatch could make a decent Riddler.
Except a lot of people basically say he wasn't actually playing the Riddler, but was basically the Joker in a Riddler outfit. In reference to how he behaved. I do think he'd be pretty good at it, as I think he can do menacing and funny pretty well. And there isn't anything connecting that era of DC movies to the current ones, so it's not like they have a canon to stick to.

Though personally I'm tired of Carey, and would like to see someone else play Riddler. Carey's been typecast enough already as the "insane comedy guy". Though personally, I'd rather not see the Joker again. He's become so blown up in the fanboy circles that nobody is ever good enough for the role to the entire community. But then I have a low tolerance for the DC-verse in general, and their revolving door of villains that seem to treat prison/confinement as a day-spa visit.
 

Baffle

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I'd let Ricky Gervais do it, but only if he pointedly channelled David Brent. I'd love the awkwardness and that weird 'heeee' deflating noise-laugh he makes when no one else gets the joke.