In an interview with ET Canada, Phoenix was asked how he moulded his character. The three-time Oscar nominee had this to say: However, before people get too crazy in the comment section with their rumours and speculation, this does not automatically mean that Joaquin Phoenix is suffering, having a bad time or has depression. I say this only because when Heath Ledger passed away, people immediately started speculating that it’s because he was so intuned with his character, that it caused him to have insomnia and then overdose on drugs. This has been debunked by Ledger’s own sister who said that the actor who played Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was having the time of his life as the character. Anyway, back to Joaquin Phoenix. The actor also proceeded to say that he wanted the freedom to create a character with a mental state so unique, real-world psychiatrists wouldn’t be able to identify the type of person Joker was. Official synopsis of Joker: Director Todd Phillips Joker centres around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study. Joker is set to hit Malaysian cinemas on 3 October 2019.
