Forum: movies.stackexchange.com
Tags: <character><the-dark-knight>
Title: Why did the Joker lick his lips?
Question: Throughout The Dark Knight, the Joker licks his lips when in conversation.  Why does the Joker do this?  Is this a psychological affect commonly observed in sociopaths or people with mental imbalances (or however you'd choose to describe the Joker)?  Or is this merely a product of Heath Ledger's portrayal? If this is the case,  what was his motivation to do so?

Answers:
sents: text: From an interview with Christopher Nolan: I don't really know where that came from...
text: He actually had a sort of prosthetic appliance for the scars that wrapped over his lower lips, and the first couple of scenes where he was playing it that way, I actually had thought it was a mistake...
text: I thought the prosthetic was coming loose on the bottom lip
text: and he was sticking it down with his tongue or something.
text: And it was only after we shot a couple of scenes I realized
text: oh no this is a thing he's found
text: , this is a sort of...
text: I think it's a lizard like... or serpent like elemental kind of gesture..
text: and I think it works...
text: I think it's very creepy...
text: [ Click here to listen to Nolan
text: talk about Ledger's creepy lip-smacking]
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/1525/Oliver_C
score: 39
sents: text: The Joker in
text: The Dark Knight had a Glasgow smile .
text: There would have been scars on the insides of his cheeks as well as on the outsides.
text: I thought Heath Ledger was acting out the behavior of someone who had never gotten used to their presence, and was constantly poking and worrying at them with his tongue, especially right at the corners of his mouth.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/4304/Will Feldman
score: 11
sents: text: It was actually an honest bad habit of Ledger's.
text: He would often lick his lips and it fit in with the character.
text: The joker is symbolically described as a dog in the film and there is many references.
text: He is a self proclaimed "dog chasing cars"
text: He is the unloyal hungry dog as compared to Chechen, the Russian's, pets/protection
text: There is a scene where he is hanging out the window of a GCPD patrol cruiser and licking his lips as wind blows his hair much like a dog would.
text: He is often seen licking his lips.
text: But, it began as just Heath's bad habit and personality
text: The symbolism is he is an animal that can play tame
text: but, much, like a pitbull, he is raw power and wilderness.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/4020/Matt
score: 5
sents: text: Several options come to mind.
text: It maybe a feature of a maniac antisocial.
text: Maniacs have several sorts of behavioral uniqueness.
text: It might be Joker's uniqueness.
text: It maybe an approach like a reptile.
text: Like they do this tongue-work before leaping into a prey, this behavior might indicate Jokers saurian satanic thought process.
text: Like incognito said it might be due to the irritation on his skin caused by his makeup.
text: Might be he does it, when he becomes nervous.
text: A discrete feature proving he is crazy!
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/3271/Mistu4u
score: 3
sents: text: A movie clip came out a few days ago talking about the joker in the movie, and it is explained why he kept licking his lips.
text: As we can see in the video below:
text: At first it was a make-up problem, that when Heath was speaking the prothestics became loosened.
text: So because Heath didn't want to keep gluing the make up to his lips over and over again, he started licking the lips, and then that became part of the character.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/42976/Gustavo Gabriel
score: 3
sents: text: My opinion is -Joker wore paint on his face so this might be causing dryness and hence the constant licking
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/313/Incognito
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
I thought that it was a mistake and only realized he was playing the character that way a couple of shots in.
He actually had a sort of prosthetic appliance for the scars that wrapped over his lower lips, a