Phoenix is only now revealing he was initially considered for the iconic part that went to Heath Ledger.
But he recently revealed on Rick Rubin’sTetragrammatonpodcast that he “talked to Chris Nolan aboutThe Dark Knight” too.
“That didn’t… wasn’t going to happen for a number of reasons.
Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Joker’; Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’.warner bros. (2)
I wasn’t ready then.
That’s one of those things,” Phoenix reflected.
“Why am I not doing this project?
Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’.Warner Bros.
What is stopping me from doing this?
Well it’s not about me, there’s something else.
I don’t know whetherChristopher Nolanwas 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, and my feeling was, I shouldn’t do this.
But maybe he also was like, ‘You’re not the guy.'”
warner bros. (2)
Ledger played the Joker in Nolan’s 2008 sequel toBatman Begins.
As Phoenix told Rubin, “To me, it was a big movie.
It was like 55 million, which I think to [Jokerdirector Todd Phillips] was a small movie.
But to me it was a big movie.
And it was what they call IP, and I’d never done that.”
It was Phoenix’s “first studio movie in a long f—ing time.”
“It’s really hard to turn that down,” Phoenix recalled.
“But I still was very unsure.”
Joker: Folie a Deuxis currently playing in theaters.
