For the past two days, we’ve been watching Patrick Leahy run the show at Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearing. He’s the gruff-talking Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the guy who keeps close watch on the clock to make sure senators aren’t going over their allotted time for questioning and so on. Perhaps you know him best as the man former VP Dick Cheney told to go “F--- Himself” a few years ago. But your Gaggler can’t stop thinking about another big Leahy role: His bit part in one of her favorite films of 2008, The Dark Knight.

As you’ll see in the clip above, Leahy shows up in the scene where the Joker, played by the late great Heath Ledger, storms a party at Bruce Wayne’s penthouse. Leahy is more than just your average extra. He actually trades a few lines with Ledger, who eventually won a posthumous Oscar for the role. In the film, Leahy tries to stand up to the Joker who promptly puts a switchblade to the senator’s mouth and threatens to carve a ghastly smile on his face. Leahy, we must say, looks convincingly frightened. Perhaps it’s all the Batman-related acting gigs he’s had before. Leahy, who brags that he’s the biggest Batman fan in Washington, voiced the role of a governor in Batman: The Animated Series. And he had a non-speaking role in the absolutely worst Batman movie ever: Batman & Robin. (Senator, how could you? George Clooney isn’t that cool.) But Leahy’s obsession has extended well beyond film. A few years ago, he wrote the forward for a Batman anthology and he once contributed to a Batman comic about land mines. So when you’re watching Leahy chair the Sotomayor hearings, just think: That guy almost got knifed by the Joker. No wonder he's not scared of Jeff Sessions.