10 Years After its Release, New Featurette Shows How ‘The Dark Knight’s Joker Was Born (VIDEO)

A huge part of the reason that Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight works as well as it does is the mystery surrounding the character. Sadly, much of this is due to the actor's untimely death prior to the film's release, meaning that he wasn't around to spill any of his secrets, and no one on the film's cast or crew has been terribly interested in delving into his process... until now.

IGN recently interviewed Oscar-winning makeup artist John Caglione, Jr. (Dick Tracy), who worked intimately with Ledger and director Christopher Nolan to create the character's look. Caglione doesn't give the game away or anything, but he gives us a bit more insight than we've ever gotten into the origin of the character's look in this fascinating new video.

There's a wealth of behind the scenes footage in this video, and hopefully seeing Ledger interacting with other cast members will dispel the rumors that he was "in character" the entire time they were shooting. It's obvious that Ledger was proud of what he brought to the film and his work obviously speaks for itself at this point. So long as you don't mind getting a peek behind the curtain, there's a lot of great stuff in this video for any fan of the film or Ledger's performance.