By Chris Snellgrove
| Printed
Lengthy earlier than Folie a Deux made historical past as one of many worst superhero movies in Hollywood historical past, Joaquin Phoenix impressed us all with the primary Joker movie. The film remodeled a billion {dollars} on the field workplace and helped its star take residence the Academy Award for Greatest Actor, making many surprise why Warner Bros. didn’t put this acclaimed actor within the clown make-up earlier. Because it seems, they almost did: Joaquin Phoenix casually talked about that he spoke with famous person director Christopher Nolan about probably taking part in the Joker in The Darkish Knight however wasn’t but able to play the well-known villain.
Joaquin Phoenix Might’ve Performed Joker In The Darkish Knight
This surprising revelation got here up through the star’s latest look on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin. Through the interview, Joaquin Phoenix was candid that he doesn’t bear in mind precisely why he didn’t get the Joker function…he mentioned, ‘“I bear in mind I talked to Chris Nolan about The Darkish Knight and that didn’t occur for no matter motive.” Whereas he elaborated a bit extra about his involvement with Nolan, Phoenix summed issues up with a easy assertion: “I wasn’t prepared then.”
Over the course of the interview, Joaquin Phoenix was equally candid in analyzing why he wasn’t able to play the Joker within the hit 2008 movie: “That’s a type of issues the place it’s like, ‘What’s in me that’s not doing this?” he requested. Sounding a bit cryptic, he famous that “it’s not about me” and concluded that “there’s one thing else” that was holding him again from embracing this iconic villain years earlier.
Reward For Heath Ledger
Ultimately, Joaquin Phoenix answered his personal query by addressing the elephant within the room: particularly, that Heath Ledger finally portrayed the Joker in The Darkish Knight and gave what can be (fairly actually, sadly) the efficiency of a lifetime. It might simply be the good thing about hindsight, however Phoenix mused that the rationale he hesitated to painting the villain, saying, “There’s one other particular person who’s going to do one thing.” He then mentioned what you’ve most likely been pondering this complete time: “I can’t think about what it might be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s efficiency in that movie.”
Lest anybody assume he was advised that he ought to have gotten the function as a substitute of Ledger (who posthumously gained the Academy Award for Greatest Actor), Phoenix clarified his reminiscence was fuzzy sufficient that he was not sure whether or not Nolan needed to solid him within the function. “I don’t know whether or not Christopher Nolan was coming to me saying, ‘You’re positively the particular person,” he admitted. Noting his certainty that they no less than met to debate the movie and the function, Phoenix identified that the director could have had his personal reservations: “My feeling was I shouldn’t do that, however possibly he additionally was like, ‘He’s not the man.’”
The Proper Timing
For as clearly proficient as Joaquin Phoenix is (he additionally took residence the Greatest Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker), we are able to’t assist however be glad that he didn’t play Batman’s nemesis in The Darkish Knight. Ledger’s Clown Prince was successful as a result of he was every little thing Phoenix’s Joker was not: daring, theatrical, and impishly confrontational. Assuming Phoenix had gotten the function and the script was unchanged, we’d have gotten the worst of each worlds…a efficiency that could be a pale shadow of each Ledger’s work in The Darkish Knight and Phoenix’s later work in Joker.
Plus, given the immense failure of Joker 2 in comparison with the Oscar-winning, billion-dollar success of the primary film, it may be time for us all to confess one thing uncomfortable: that first Joker movie was a fortunate fluke, one whose success speaks to how a lot youthful audiences have been prepared for a Taxi Driver remake with a star in clown make-up. Joaquin Phoenix is immensely proficient and his first Joker efficiency stays iconic, however the sequel’s failure proves simply how little expertise issues when the script is that this unhealthy. The title was fairly correct, as this was a folie a deux…a folly shared by each Phoenix and Phillips.
Supply: Variety
