Joaquin Phoenix says extreme weight loss and a manic laugh unlocked Joker’s madness for him
After Jack Nicholson, Jared Leto and Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix had big clown shoes to fill. His extreme, “one-of-a-kind experience”, including dropping 23kgs in three months, may have made him the best Clown Prince of Crime yet.
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Nailing the laugh was the way in for Joaquin Phoenix to become the latest iteration of the Joker.
“That was the starting point, the laugh. Before I even read the script, Todd Phillips [director] showed me videos of people in uncontrollable laughing fits,” Phoenix says, referring to the condition Pseudobulbar Affect, which manifests as sudden bouts of uncontrollable laughing or crying.
“And the laugh was described as almost painful, which I thought was a really smart way of approaching this trademark of the Joker.”
This rendition of Batman’s most famous nemesis is a creature we’ve not seen before.
Phillips and his co-screenwriter, Scott Silver (Fighter, 8 Mile) explore the origin story of Arthur Fleck, and how he transforms into the Clown Prince of Crime: A failed stand-up comedian, he was violently abused as a child by his mother and her boyfriend, and later as an adult, marginalised by society.
We feel his pain, and almost empathise with his journey along the inevitable path of crime, destruction, and vengeance.
Indeed, so powerful is Phoenix’s performance that the film has already found critics in the US accusing it of glorifying violence and concerned about those who might sympathise with the psychopath.
As the Joker, Phoenix, 44, follows such esteemed actors as Jack Nicholson (Batman 1989), Jared Leto (Suicide Squad, 2016), and, most notably, Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight (2008).
Playing the villainous harlequin of hate in the wake of performances of such calibre was quite the challenge.
But Phoenix more than holds his own, and is already racking up awards buzz following the movie’s win at the Venice Film Festival for Best Film.
“I haven’t watched The Dark Knight again since it came out, nor Tim Burton’s Batman, after I watched it originally, when I was about 15,” says Phoenix.
“Todd and I wanted to make our own film — we didn’t want to feel that we were connected to any other interpretation of the character, the film, or the comic. So, no, I absolutely didn’t watch [Heath Ledger] again.”
Phillips, best known for directing The Hangover trilogy, talks about Phoenix being the latest name actor to tackle the always-coveted role.
“Why does it attract such brilliant actors to the same role?” he ponders.
“For me, it represents no rules, lawlessness. He is pure id, no ego, a wild stallion with no rider.”
But even so, Phoenix took a lot of convincing.
Explains Phillips: “It’s an intimidating role to take on, especially with the huge expectations and the fears, but at the same time, that’s what energised him. And in fact, we never talked about those other [Joker] movies because it was too overwhelming of a cloud hanging over [any actor in the Joker role]. Eventually, we got past it, put our heads down, and tried to do our own thing.”
Phoenix, who in a long and celebrated career has earned a reputation as being a passionate, intense and sometimes difficult actor, was Phillips’ first and only choice to play the role.
“Joaquin is an agent of chaos, and it helps to have a little mayhem in you to play Joker.”
Phoenix shed an astonishing 23kg in three months to create a gaunt, hunted, hungry look for the character.
He also declined the studio’s offer to do it under the supervision of a nutritionist and doctor, and lost the weight his own way — by surviving on little more than an apple a day.
“You get to a place where a stalk of celery tastes fantastic,” Phoenix says with a wry smile. “Like, eventually, you can taste seven different flavours in it.”
The extreme weight loss also served Phoenix in facilitating and enhancing the way in which Joker moved, an integral character trait.
“There was a fluidity to the movements because literally you’re lighter and your body moves differently,” he says.
“I worked with a choreographer, but not necessarily to learn specific [dance] steps, although we did some of that, but it was more about him talking about the vocabulary of dance, and that triggered something in me that was unexpected.”
Actors will often tell you about feelings of vulnerability after losing that much weight. Not so with Phoenix.
“I found it empowering and strengthening because you’re taking control over your body,” he says.
Unquestionably he gave it his all, physically and mentally.
“At the end of a day’s shoot, even though it was draining and exhausting — and sometimes that laugh would really take a lot out of you — I’d feel so inspired that I’d go home and read through the next week’s work with Todd on the phone,” he says.
Movie buffs will enjoy Joker’s many homages to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and King Of Comedy.
Phillips even goes so far as borrowing the star of those iconic films, Robert De Niro, casting him in a role similar to that of Jerry Lewis’s talk show host in King Of Comedy.
“King Of Comedy was one of my favourite movies growing up,” says Phillips.
“There’s a lot of influences in this movie, not just Marty [Scorsese], although I love and worship him. But I wanted to make a movie in the vein of those great character studies in Network, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Serpico.”
Joker was shot in New York and New Jersey on a budget of $80 million, with a supporting cast that includes Zazie Beetz and Frances Conroy.
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Although it might appear to be a role Phoenix was born to play, Joker was the most difficult of his nearly 40 films, including two roles which earned him Oscar nominations in Gladiator (2000) and the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line (2005).
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a character this drastic,” he says.
“I would try to understand a motivation but it would inevitably shift away from my understanding.
“The behaviours he exhibits are irrational and unreasonable. I never really got to that place of feeling like I understood the character. But there was something really exciting about not understanding him. It was a one-of-a-kind experience.”
Joker opens tomorrow.