(Credit: Netflix)

When you hear the name Heath Ledger, what is the one character that comes to your mind? For the majority, it is Joker from The Dark Knight. The reason being that it was the late actor’s one of the most iconic performances in film history, a twisted and unforgettable blend of chaos and cinema.

And why not? This was the role that won him a posthumous Oscar and turned The Dark Knight into a cultural juggernaut overnight. His exceptional performance forever changed the way we see comic book villains. But what if we told you that the roots of this wild performance trace back to a 1970s rockstar with a cigarette rasp and a whiskey-soaked voice? Enter: Tom Waits.

From the year the film was first released, 2008, till today, fans and film nerds have been obsessively dissecting Ledger’s Joker. From the voice, the tics, to the way he licks his lips between threats, there is nothing left undiscussed. A quite popular trivia behind his preparation for the role was that he locked himself in a hotel room for weeks to build the character from scratch. However, many believe that one of his biggest inspirations for the role was a 1979 interview with musician Tom Waits.

This interview resurfaced on YouTube years later, and it has Waits appearing on Australian television. With a slouched posture, unpredictable cadence, and a growl of a voice that slips between sentences like smoke, Waits rambled jokes and threw curveballs at the interviewer with the same energy that feels hauntingly familiar.

Ledger, who was famous for his immersive method, never publicly confirmed the Waits connection, but the internet never delayed in making up its mind. Fans were quick to point out the similarities between Waits’ vocal rhythm and Ledger’s Joker. With the erratic tone changes and the sentences that could end in either a joke or a threat, the resemblance was uncanny.

Surprisingly, it is not the first time Ledger has studied an obscure source for a role. His friends and co-stars have, on occasion, spoken about how deeply this heck of an actor would dive into the psyche of his characters. In fact, for the Joker, he reportedly kept a diary filled with twisted ideas and references, including photos, quotes and even jokes that felt like something the character might find funny.

Well, of course, it would be wrong to say that Ledger’s jokes are just an imitation of Tom Waits. Though it would be safe to say that it is a patchwork of inspiration, including Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. But Waits’ influence is an interesting layer that shows how deep Ledger went in crafting the version of Joker in The Dark Knight.

What makes this connection even more special is that it makes the character even more realistic, knowing that it wasn’t borrowed from just books but was influenced by a living, breathing character. And not just any mainstream superstar, but a quite strange and unpredictable corner of pop culture.

So the next time you watch The Dark Knight, keep an ear out for the voice of Waits and see if you can catch the resemblance or not.