Steve Carell Desperately Wanted To Play The Joker in 'The Dark Knight'

The most iconic character to emerge from 2000s cinema is, arguably, the Joker from 2008’s The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger’s take on the iconic Batman villain is simply mesmerizing, at any one time, crazed, terrifying, cunning, and even darkly funny. It's one of those rare performances where the actor completely disappears into the character, like his cast mates, Gary Oldman in Hannibaland Christian Bale in Vice. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role, let alone so successfully, but there were other actors considered for the Clown Prince of Crime, including Joaquin Phoenix, who would place his own mark on the character with 2019's Joker. But there's one actor said to have been in the running that would have made The Dark Knight a very different film. That actor is Steve Carell, and he wanted it.