The extreme weight loss — reportedly over 50
pounds — led to a kind of madness that helped
him get ready for the role, as did a book breaking
down the personality types of political assassins.
But Phoenix wanted to create a criminal
psychopath who wasn’t easy to categorize.
“I didn’t want a psychologist to be able to identify
what kind of person he was,” he said. ”(I) wanted
there to remain a mystery about the character.”
And he was so nervous about getting the laugh
right that he asked writer-director Todd Phillips
to come to his place so he could “audition” a few,
which apparently went on for an uncomfortable
amount of time.
The character constantly evolved, even into the
shoot. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s haunting
score — which she began writing off the script
— became a key motivator during the process.
Phillips often played snippets on set to help set
the tone.
“We were discovering new aspects about his
personality up to the very last day,” Phoenix said.
Sometimes the discoveries resulted in debates
about whether or not to go back and reshoot.
On the long road to making “Joker” happen,
that was par for the course. Phillips said in
developing the script he and co-writer Scott
Silver pushed each other every day to “come up
with something totally insane.”
The movie itself is a massive departure from the
current mode of DC Comics films from Warner
Bros, like “Wonder Woman” and “Justice League.”
It’s not bound by the comics or informed by past
portrayals (“This joker’s goal was not to watch
the world burn,” Phillips said) but strives to be
somethingentirelynew.
Image: Theodore Parisienne