10 Actors You Probably Didn’t Know Almost Played The Joker

6) Sam Rockwell

Comic book movie fans already known Sam Rockwell as the anti-Tony Stark Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2. However, if everything had gone the actor’s way, he would be famous for playing a villain for both Marvel and DC. You see, Rockwell was one of the actors in the running to play the Joker in The Dark Knight.

At first glance, it’s hard to imagine that Rockwell’s signature brand of manic comedy would have been a good fit for Christopher Nolan’s post-9/11 interpretation of the Joker that was eventually so well realized by Heath Ledger. However, no one expected Ledger to be as good as he was, so perhaps Rockwell would have knocked it out of the park as well?

5) Adrien Brody

The Pianist actor Adrien Brody is not usually one for big-budget movie roles, but he has dipped his toe into major films now and again – generally when he was miscast. For instance, his unforeseen turn as a Hollywood leading man in King Kong. We could have also seen the unlikely sight of him in a superhero film if, like Rockwell, Brody had been cast in The Dark Knight.

The actor was actually really keen to play the part and has publicly spoken about playing the Joker again in the DC Extended Universe movies (though obviously that hasn’t come to pass).

“I would do it if I feel I can contribute something valuable and that the role would be interesting to me,” Brody said. “To me, the villains are way fun!”