Jack Nicholson secured one of the highest salaries in Hollywood history with him. Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar with him. Jared Leto entered the billionaire comic book franchises with him. The character Joker, from DC Comics, rival to Marvel, seems to be an irresistible attraction for movie stars.
It was no different for Joaquin Phoenix, who takes on the role of Batman’s antagonist in the violent and dark “Joker”, a drama about social inequality and mental health that narrates the origin of the character. “I only came across it because I wasn’t sure what I could do. The fear of failure motivated me,” Phoenix confesses.
In the film, which opens in October in Brazil and has a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival today, the actor plays Arthur Fleck, a long-suffering clown during the day and an aspiring comedian at night.
The story written by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver takes place in a Gotham in an economic crisis between the 1970s and 1980s. Fleck suffers from a mental problem that generates attacks of uncontrollable laughter.
“Laughter was the starting point for me because Todd described it as painful. I found this interesting and surprising. I saw videos of people with these attacks and I never imagined that the Joker could be like that ”, the actor says.
“I needed someone fearless to play the Joker. And Joaquin Phoenix is an actor who holds no effort to live a character,” Phillips explains. “We wrote the role for him. Just for him.”
Created in 1940 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson, the Joker has had different origins in comics, film, and TV. The new film does not follow any arc from the comics, but alludes to features such as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), “Taxi Driver” (1976), and “The King of Comedy” (1982) —Robert De Niro even has a small role as a talk show host.
It is a character study without explosions or spectacular action scenes. “It is a tragedy”, summarizes the filmmaker. “When I took the idea to Warner, they thought I was crazy. I brought the script a year later and they almost kicked me out of the studio.”
Phillips was never a fan of comic books. Phoenix follows the same line. “To be honest, I didn’t know much about the Joker. I remember reading ‘Arkham Asylum’. But I watched the films by Tim Burton and Chris Nolan ”, says the actor, who recently saw “Batman – The Dark Knight” (2008).
“I was curious when it appeared on my TV. Heath was a brilliant actor and a great guy. I remember how the interpretation left a mark, but I wanted to be free to create something original.”
Even with adult themes and R-Rated, “Joker” does not deviate from the Batman universe, even though it has no connection with any previous film. Thomas Wayne, played by Brett Cullen, who will be the hero’s father in the future, runs for Mayor of Gotham and has an amazing connection with Arthur Fleck.
“We have a foot in the comics, but we made our story. I don’t want people to think it’s ‘The Killing Joke’, ”says Phillips.
So much so that Phoenix presented different ideas about the look of the Clown Prince of Crime. “I read that people with this syndrome dramatically lose weight or gain weight. I told Todd that I would like to get fat for the role,” Phoenix recalls.
Phillips, to convey the idea of a man who lives in poor financial conditions, wanted an aspect of malnutrition and cut off the idea of the star. “I just wanted to eat hamburgers and fries, but he explained the concept to me and I understood that it was a more interesting way”, says the actor.
The Joker then became a thin and malleable creature, like a performance dancer. “Dance is a big component of composition. I think there is an arrogance in the way he moves with his chin up,” says Phoenix, who goes to becoming a murderer and to become a symbol of the oppressed, dancing in the middle of Gotham’s chaos. “That’s when I realized ‘fuck, this is the Joker’.”
