The Dark Knight.... Al Franken anybody?

Yes - I'm special, and here's why: "The Dark Knight" is opening tomorrow, and I saw it already. That's right! I'm a lot more special than any of you ever imagined.

How special am I? I was at a "special screening" of "The Dark Knight" two weeks ago. Yes, that makes me very special. It was only the second screening of the film anywhere in the world, and I was there. Why was I there? Pretty lame, in truth.... The Screen Actors Guild randomly selected me as a nominating member for the SAG Awards committee. I think there are actually hundreds of people in the "committee" which never seems to meet or even "lunch." None of my committee colleagues ever calls. We don't bowl together or play softball. We don't sit at a giant semi-circular table in large, cushy leather chairs and discuss anything. Nothing. In fact, considering the paltry number of auditions that I get per year (I call it A.D.D. - "Audition Deficit Disorder"), my SAG membership itself thus far has amounted to little more than a very, very expensive magazine subscription.

Certainly now, however, my acting career is all working as I get to see a handful of movies this season for free. What more could I possibly want?

But I digress - after all this is about the film "The Dark Knight," not Richard Lucas - The Dark Knight.

Many of you good friends will soon see the movie. Heath Ledger, you will see, put up a great performance as The Joker. But I couldn't help but be distracted by the exaggerated voice he uses. It sounds like a spot-on impersonation of Al Franken. Exact same deep, deep resonance but high nasally projection. And the timing, too. Basically it's an Al Franken in real bad need of a glass of water - a brilliant choice. It's a great voice. But sadly, I'll never get to find out if this is what Ledger was doing, nor how he came up with that choice.


After the screening, there was a Q&A. Christopher Nolan was there, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal as well. My friend, Reuben, who accompanied me there (see, if you were nicer to me, it might have been you) asked a great question about the special effects, and yet, all I could do during the Q&A was try to figure out a way that I could ask any member of the panel if Heath Ledger was doing an Al Franken voice without sounding like a wise-ass. (As a side note, I haven't figured out a way to do very much without sounding like a wise-ass.) Unfortunately because of this tormented self-consciousness, I never quite formulated the question reasonably in my mind, nor did I hear most of the Q's and few of the A's, so I am as in-the-dark now as I was before.

When I brought Al Franken's voice up later, Reuben thought I was crazy. Some friend... Silently, so as not to cause use a big ruckus about it, I assured myself: "Reuben obviously doesn't know who Al Franken is, and he's got a tin ear for inflection - that's for damn sure." Surely now he will say that he does know Franken, but I assure you my friends, he doesn't because if he did, he would have been hearing just what I was hearing. It's his sanity or mine.

My question is - is anyone with me on the voice thing? All you brilliant actors out there? Radio listeners / Fans of Franken? Minnesotans? Classic SNL fans?

Just one bit of agreement in this world and I'd be forever satisfied.