By With the “Joker” sequel about to hit digital after a disastrous box-office run, the film’s star Joaquin Phoenix has revealed that his take on the character was almost part of another film.
Appearing on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin (via Variety), Phoenix revealed that he had talked to director Christopher Nolan about potentially playing the Clown Prince of Crime in 2008’s “The Dark Knight”.
Heath Ledger ultimately played The Joker in Nolan’s 2008 film, posthumously winning an Oscar for his work. Eleven years later, Phoenix won an Oscar for his work playing The Joker in 2019’s “Joker”.
Phoenix says he can’t recall much of the context of the conversation with Nolan and how it went, but he definitely remembers meeting him over the role. He explains:
“I remember I talked to Chris Nolan about The Dark Knight and that didn’t happen for whatever reason. I wasn’t ready then. That’s one of those things where it’s like… ‘What is in me that’s not doing this?’
And it’s not about me. There’s something else. There’s another person who is going to do something. I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film right.
I don’t know whether Christopher Nolan was coming to me saying you are definitely the person. I can’t remember the context of how we met but I know that we met yeah and my feeling was ‘I shouldn’t do this’. But maybe he also was like ‘you’re not the guy’. I couldn’t say but it went the way it was supposed to go.”
2019’s “Joker” went on to make $1.079 billion worldwide at the box-office, becoming the most successful R-rated film of all time until “Deadpool & Wolverine” overtook it this Summer. The sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux,” has only just passed $200 million and is expected to wrap its worldwide run around the same amount that the first film took in its opening weekend globally – $234 million.
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