Mark Hamill is a massive comic book nut and it's obvious within five minutes of conversation with the actor that Batman The Joker , for 12 years of animated adventures must have been his dream role, and he loved it so much he wouldn't let anyone else near it. "I played The Joker from 1992 to 2004, for the entire run of the series," he says. "I did everything, even the talking toys. They weren't going to hire me, they were going to get another guy and I got very protective of the character.

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"They said, 'Well, we can't pay you what you expect, we can only pay a scale.' I said, 'Look, I'd rather not let anyone else sleep in my sleeping bag.' I would do all those things for scale. I even did the voices on the Australian Batman rollercoaster ride, I'm totally into it."He catches himself for a minute. "This is the real comic book nerd emerging," he laughs. "And I'm unapologetic about it, my wife just needed to deal with it! She liked antique jewellery, I liked comic books!"IGN has come to meet Hamill at the Cannes Film Festival, where he's just announced intentions to direct a movie version of his comic book, The Black Pearl. But since his comic features a vigilante hero without superpowers, the conversation has wandered smoothly towards Batman. Specifically, towards his upcoming appearance in Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 But with The Joker forming such a large part of his acting career, it seems Hamill took some convincing to sign on for the sequel. "My answer to [developers Rocksteady] for the sequel was, 'Guys, we're never going to be able to top the original.' It was so claustrophobic. There were so many abilities like the stealth mode, and all those things you can do with the new technology. I wanted to be able to say I'd gone out on a high note."It was the same reaction he'd had when Rocksteady first approached him about the role in the original Batman: Arkham Asylum . "When they said, 'We want you to come back [to the role of The Joker] and do Arkham,' I said the same; 'I left on a high note, I don't think we could ever top that.' But they said, 'We got Paul Dini,' who was my favourite ever Joker writer, 'and Kevin Conroy,' who I love. This was a real reunion and a very pleasant experience. So of course I relented, but I had no idea it would have the impact it did."Quite an impact, in fact. "That game, which is pretty much the last product I had on the marketplace, did something like $562m. I mean, we're talking about more than a half billion dollars." So he was unsurprised to get the phone call from Rocksteady about doing the sequel and they were equally unsurprised that he had doubts. "Of course they translated [my hesitance] to me holding out for a bigger salary," he laughs. "But I said, 'No.' I never looked at it like, 'Boy, I'm going to make a truckload of money.' I really did want it to be good."So what changed his mind? "I got on the phone with Rocksteady and they really reassured me and told me what they were going to do with the sequel. But I'm sworn to secrecy!"Nevertheless, there's plenty to be gauged from his final remarks, certainly about the fate of The Joker in this second part. "This will be my last, there's no question about that. But it's the last hurrah."