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Secret To Joker's Pencil Trick In 'The Dark Knight' Finally Revealed

Secret To Joker's Pencil Trick In 'The Dark Knight' Finally Revealed

It wasn't done with CGI movie magic!

Rachael Grealish

Rachael Grealish

It's almost hard to believe that it's been a decade since The Dark Knight was released - which means it's also ten years since the world lost Heath Ledger, who will always be remembered for his iconic performance as Batman's nemesis, The Joker.

The film is widely regarded as one of the best comic book adaptations of all time, filled from start to finish with some staggeringly good set-pieces - and one that's been bugging fans since the movie's release back in 2008 is the scene with The Joker, a pencil and a very unfortunate man.

Audiences have been scratching their heads about how it happened for years - and now it's been revealed there was no CGI magic involved. Instead, it was all just a very clever sleight-of-hand trick.

The scene shows the Clown Prince of Crime attempting to recruit some henchmen - in a demonstration of his ruthless authority, he takes a pencil out of his pocket and stands it upright on a table. He then puts an ominous question to the men before him.

Do you want to see a magic trick?

The Joker then proceeds to slam an approaching man's head towards the table, causing the pencil to go straight through the guy's eye and into his brain - effectively killing him on the spot. Gruesome.

He certainly made the pencil disappear - but how the hell did they do it?

Charles Jarman, the actor who played the unfortunate henchman, explained to Movieweb that the scene took a load of practice and 22 takes, and ended with a couple of 'knock-out' moments.

"I remember Christopher Nolan saying to me, 'Look, we're going to do a couple of shots where you need to be able to take that pencil away,'" Charles said.

"We did a couple of half-speed rehearsals just to get the hand action of my right hand sweeping across, taking the pencil as my body was going down, and my head striking the blank surface."

Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight.
Warner Bros

He continued: "It was a little hairy, because the pencil's stuck in the table. If, for some reason, I didn't get my hand in time, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Well, possibly through a Ouija board."

Apparently he ended up getting knocked out three times due to the number of times Heath Ledger - who stayed in character all times on set - pushed his head into the table. Ouch.

Charles also added that one of the only times Ledger broke character was to ask if he was alright.

I mean, I suppose you'd have to.

Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Topics: TV and Film, Joker, US Entertainment