Here is every actor who has ever played the Joker

Jared Leto has big shoes to fill this summer. Big, clown shoes. 

Leto will play the latest incarnation of the Joker in this summer's adaptation of "Suicide Squad." Upon his casting, Leto was immediately compared to the likes of the late Heath Ledger, who was posthumously awarded an Oscar for his performance in the role in 2008's "The Dark Knight." 

Leto's performance won't only be compared to Ledger, but to every actor who has taken on the role. 

Keep reading to find out more about the dozen performances Leto has to live up to later this year.

Cesar Romero was the first actor to play the icon onscreen when he took on the role in the original "Batman" series in 1966.

Cesar Romero, known in his day as the "Latin from Manhattan," was a skilled actor and dancer.

Romero had a full career before his role as Joker in the original 1966 series with Adam West as Batman and Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. In the A&E documentary series "Biography," West said that Romero "brought an enormous amount of energy to the role...I don't know how he did it." In the same special, Romero said his role as Joker was easy, "When [you] get in an outfit like that...you fall right into it."

Jack Nicholson played the first theatrical iteration of the Clown Prince of Crime in 1989's "Batman."

Jack Nicholson played Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 take on the film. Nicholson told MTV he took the role partly because of his belief in Burton's vision of Batman. "Tim Burton’s a genius. He had the right take on it. That’s why I did the movie," he said. "I did the movie based on a single conversation with him. We both come from the cartoon world originally. We had similar ideas."

Mark Hamill became the voice of the Joker for the DC Animated Universe starting in 1992.

Hamill has been playing the Joker the longest of all the actors here.

His version of the Joker first appeared in the Emmy award-winning "Batman the Animated Series.""BTAS" was the first of many shows in the DC Animated Universe, which all shared the same canon and voice actors. Hamill would go on to appear in adaptations of Superman, the Justice League, and Static Shock as well. He appeared in animated films and video games as well.

After announcing his "retirement" of the character in 2011, he's slated to reprise the role in a 2017 adaptation of Batman's iconic "The Killing Joke" story, marking 25 years as the character.