Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman: A billionaire dedicated to protecting Gotham City from the criminal underworld. Bale said he was confident in his choice to return in the role because of the positive response to his performance in Batman Begins. He trained in the Keysi Fighting Method, and performed many of his own stunts, but did not gain as much muscle as in the previous film because the new Batsuit allowed him to move with more agility.
The actor described Batman’s dilemma as whether “[his crusade is] something that has an end. Can he quit and have an ordinary life? The kind of manic intensity someone has to have to maintain the passion and the anger that they felt as a child, takes an effort after awhile, to keep doing that. At some point, you have to exorcise your demons.” He added, “Now you have not just a young man in pain attempting to find some kind of an answer, you have somebody who actually has power, who is burdened by that power, and is having to recognize the difference between attaining that power and holding on to it.” Bale felt that, because Batman’s personality was strongly established in the first film, it was unlikely his character would be overshadowed by the villains, stating: “I have no problem with competing with someone else. And that’s going to make a better movie.”
Heath Ledger as The Joker: Ledger described the Joker as a “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy”. Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past, but had been unable to do so. When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he realized a way to make the character work consistent with the film’s tone, and Nolan agreed with his anarchic interpretation. To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character’s posture, voice, and personality, and kept a diary, in which he recorded the Joker’s thoughts and feelings. While he initially found it difficult, Ledger eventually generated a voice unlike that of Jack Nicholson’s character in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film. He was also given Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, which he “really tried to read and put it down”. Ledger also cited A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious as “a very early starting point for Christian [Bale] and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether.” “There’s a bit of everything in him. There’s nothing that consistent,” Ledger said, adding that “There are a few more surprises to him.” Before Ledger was confirmed to play the Joker in July 2006, Paul Bettany, Lachy Hulme, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell, and Robin Williams publicly expressed interest in the role.
On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming The Dark Knight, Ledger died of a prescription drug overdose, leading to intense press attention and memorial tributes. “It was tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day,” Nolan recalled. “But the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish.” All of Ledger’s scenes appear as he completed them in the filming; in editing the film, Nolan added no “digital effects” to alter Ledger’s actual performance posthumously. Nolan has dedicated the film in part to Ledger’s memory, as well as to the memory of technician Conway Wickliffe, who was killed during a car accident while preparing one of the film’s stunts.
Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face: The Gotham district attorney who is hailed as Gotham’s “White Knight”; Dent’s battle with the Joker transforms Dent into a murderous, disfigured vigilante called “Two-Face”. Producer Charles Roven described Dent as initially the “white knight of the city”. Wayne sees Dent as his heir, demonstrating his realization that Batman will be a lifelong mission, and furthering the tragedy of Dent’s downfall. Whereas Two-Face is an evil villain in the comics, Nolan chose to portray him as a twisted vigilante to emphasize his role as Batman’s counterpart, much like his portrayal in Batman stories by Doug Moench, and Eckhart, who has played corrupt men in films such as The Black Dahlia, Thank You For Smoking and In the Company of Men, notes: “[He] is still true to himself. He’s a crime fighter, he’s not killing good people. He’s not a bad guy, not purely,” while admitting: “I’m interested in good guys gone wrong.” Nolan and David S. Goyer had originally considered using Dent in Batman Begins, but they replaced him with the new character Rachel Dawes when they realized they “couldn’t do him justice”. Before Eckhart was cast in February 2007, Liev Schreiber, Josh Lucas, and Ryan Phillippe had expressed interest in the role. Nolan chose Eckhart, whom he had considered for the lead role in Memento, citing his “extraordinary” ability as an actor, his embodiment of “that kind of chiselled, American hero quality” projected by Robert Redford, and his subtextual “edge”.
Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth: Bruce Wayne’s trusted butler and advisor who tends to Wayne’s penthouse. His supply of useful advice to Wayne and his likeness to a fatherly figure to him has led to him being labelled as “Batman’s batman”.
Gary Oldman as James Gordon: Lieutenant of the Gotham City Police Department and one of the few police officers who is not corrupt. He forms a tenuous, unofficial alliance with Batman and Dent. When Police Commissioner Loeb is assassinated by the Joker, Gordon is given the position by Mayor Garcia. Oldman described his character as “incorruptible, virtuous, strong, heroic, but understated”. Nolan explained that “The Long Halloween has a great, triangular relationship between Harvey Dent and Gordon and Batman, and that’s something we very much drew from.” Oldman added that “Gordon has a great deal of admiration for him at the end, but [Batman] is more than ever now the dark knight, the outsider. I’m intrigued now to see: If there is a third one, what he’s going to do?” On the possibility of another sequel, he said that “returning to [the role] is not dependent on whether the role was bigger than the one before”.
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes: The Gotham assistant D.A. and childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, she is one of the few people who knows he is Batman. Gyllenhaal took over the role from Katie Holmes, who played it in Batman Begins. In August 2005, Holmes was reportedly planning to reprise the role, but in January 2007, she turned it down due to scheduling conflicts. By March 2007, Gyllenhaal was in “final talks” for the part. Gyllenhaal has acknowledged her character is a damsel in distress to an extent, but says Nolan sought ways to empower her character, so “Rachel’s really clear about what’s important to her and unwilling to compromise her morals, which made a nice change” from the many conflicted characters whom she has previously portrayed.
Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox: The recently-promoted CEO of Wayne Enterprises who, now fully aware of his employer’s double life as Batman, serves more directly as Wayne’s armorer in addition to his corporate managerial duties.
Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, who is captured early on in the film by Batman.
Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni, a gangster who has taken over Carmine Falcone’s mob. Bob Hoskins and James Gandolfini previously auditioned for the role.
Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb, the Police Commissioner of Gotham until his murder at the hands of the Joker.
The film’s Gotham officials and authorities include Nestor Carbonell as Mayor Anthony Garcia, Keith Szarabajka as Detective Gerard Stephens, Monique Curnen as Anna Ramirez, and Ron Dean as Detective Michael Wuertz. While Stephens is an honest and good cop, the latter two are two corrupt officers who betray Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes to the Joker. The film also casts Anthony Michael Hall as Gotham Cable News reporter Mike Engel, Joshua Harto as Coleman Reese, Melinda McGraw and Nathan Gamble as Gordon’s wife and son, and Tom Lister, Jr. as a prison inmate on one of the bomb-rigged ferries. The film’s criminals include Chin Han as Chinese business accountant Lau, Michael Jai White as gang leader Gambol, and Ritchie Coster as The Chechen. David Banner originally auditioned for the role of Gambol.
William Fichtner is the Gotham National Bank branch manager; his casting was “a bit of a nod” to his role in Michael Mann’s 1995 film Heat. Musician Dwight Yoakam was approached for the roles of either the manager or a corrupt cop, but he chose to focus on his album Dwight Sings Buck. Another cameo was United States Senator Patrick Leahy, a Batman fan who previously was an extra in the 1997 Batman & Robin and also was a guest voice actor on Batman: The Animated Series. Leahy cameos as a guest who defies the Joker at a fundraiser thrown by Bruce Wayne.