Jack Nicholson’s Joker Makeup Had a Big Secret Detail, But Nobody Noticed

Summary:

• The DC’s Joker has had several major interpretations over the course of the cinema history and the work on the character obviously required a lot of artistic effort — but one particular time the process got even more complicated than usual.
• Jack Nicholson got to portray Joker in 1989’s Batman directed by Tim Burton, and at that time the crew faced some specific difficulties concerning the character’s image on screen.
• Though the team had quite severe obstacles, they nonetheless found a witty way to avoid them thus contributing to the film’s status of cult classic.

Cinema history holds some of the most memorable interpretations of one of DC's most compelling characters — and the process of bringing him to the screen is complex for obvious reasons.

As Joker, most prominently portrayed by Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson and recently Joaquin Phoenix, has played a crucial role in several different stories focused on Batman, the character’s specific look also required the makeup artists and costume designers’ painstaking work — and those who work with Jack Nicholson on set of Tim Burton’s Batman know that like nobody else.

Almost 35 years ago Jack Nicholson managed to invent one more fascinating Joker, but back in the day the whole process took more of an effort than it was supposed to.

Something quite evident, the character’s appearance depends mostly on a lot of makeup that creates the evil clown’s face as well as flamboyant and even seemingly sinister costumes. While the latter ones weren’t quite a problem, the makeup nonetheless became a great challenge for makeup artists because of Nicholson’s allergic reactions.

As the actor admitted himself later, he was then allergic to Spirit gum, the ingredient that is present in almost everything that concerns theatrical wigs or masks. Nicholson’s allergy thus didn’t allow anyone to use basic tools for creating Joker’s makeup, but the crew eventually came up with something else.

As the artists shared in some behind-the-scenes videos, they had to make molds of Nicholson’s face to then create an exaggerated version of the original makeup on it. The prosthetics also wasn’t supposed to impede the actor to express the emotions, so the artists had to reckon with it too.

Despite all the major obstacles, the team finally managed to magically create the makeup that wouldn’t even touch Jack Nicholson’s face — and, luckily, nobody even noticed.

On top of that, Nicholson’s powerful performance was probably one of the reasons why such details were never brought up — the makeup artists’ work was so subtle and the actor’s role turned out to be so tremendous that Nicholson’s Joker surely entered the list of the character’s best interpretations ever made.