Quotes

Why [producer William Dozier] wanted me for Batman (1966), I'll never know, because I asked his wife, Ann Rutherford, "Why did Bill think of me for this part?". She said, "I don't know, Butch. He said he saw you in something, and he said, 'He's the one I want to play the Joker'." I haven't the slightest idea what it was he saw me in, because I had never done anything like it before.

I was very surprised when [producer William Dozier] called me and said he was doing a series called Batman (1966) and the important characters were the villains. They had done the first two with the Riddler and the Penguin with Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith, and now they were ready to do the third, and the villain was the Joker. He said, "I would like you to play the part." So I said I would like to read the script and know what it is all about. He said, "Come on over to the studio, and I will show you the film of the first episode." Of course, it was great. I said, "Let me read this Joker part, and if it is as good as the first one, hell yes, I will do it." So I read the script, and I thought it was a gas, and I said, "Sure, I'll do it.".

I was never stereotyped as just a Latin lover in any case because I played so many parts in so many pictures. I was more of a character actor than a straight leading man. I did many kinds of characters -- Hindus, Indians, Italians. There were very few pictures where I ended up with the girl.

I had enormous fun playing the Joker on Batman (1966). I ended up doing something like 20 episodes of Batman, as well as the full-length feature film version [Batman: The Movie (1966)]. There was certainly nothing hard about that assignment! Even the makeup sessions weren't too bad. It took about an hour-and-a-half to put the full makeup on, including the green wig. I didn't mind it at all.

I thought it was very humanitarian of Sean Penn and Madonna to marry each other. That way, they make only two people miserable instead of four.

[on his Joker's laugh]: When I get into an outfit like that, I'm not going to go "oh ha ha", I'm going to go "ooh ha ha ha ha"...you fall right into it. I thoroughly enjoyed playing the Joker.