Actor Joaquin Phoenix was recently part of an interview, where he opened up about how he had the opportunity to star in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight as the Joker. Phoenix recently appeared as Arthur Fleck, AKA Joker in Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, which hit cinemas on October 4. Although fans and critics had huge expectations from the sequel, it didn’t do well financially and received poor reviews from audiences.
Joaquin Phoenix met Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight’s Joker
Joaquin Phoenix was recently present for a 2-hour long chat, where he revealed how he almost landed the job to play Joker in The Dark Knight (2008).
On the podcast Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin, the actor remembered how Christopher Nolan brought him the offer to portray Joker on the big screen. He said, “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.”
Joaquin Phoenix pressed on how things might have been if he had been in the movie and not Heath Ledger, who originally played Joker in The Dark Knight. “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?” he added.
Moreover, Phoenix wondered if Nolan was also sure to cast him as Joker. He asserted, “My feeling was I shouldn’t do this, but maybe he also was like, ‘He’s not the guy.'” In 2019, Joaquin Phoenix finally landed the chance to play Joker and even won the Oscar for his performance in the movie. Additionally, Joker became one of the highest-grossing A-rated movies, amassing a billion at the box office.
