This archive report was first published on 2 September 2019.
At the 76th Venice Film Festival, Joaquin Phoenix spoke about his intense preparation for the role of the Joker in Todd Phillips' origin story film. The actor's transformation into the iconic villain was no laughing matter, as he revealed in a recent interview.
Phoenix lost a staggering 52 pounds for the role, a process that helped him get into the right headspace to play the Joker but also took a significant mental toll. "It turns out that affects your psychology," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "You start to go mad."
Phoenix's drastic weight loss is part of a trend that has become the norm since Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight. More recently, Jared Leto slimmed down dramatically to play a lean, mean version of the Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad.
Unlike other movies and TV shows featuring the clown prince of crime, Joker is an origin story set in 1981 Gotham City. The film follows the transformation of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) from a down-on-his-luck comedian to a dangerous criminal.
"He's so hard to define and you don't really want to define him," said Phoenix. "We would get close at times where I found that I would identify certain parts of his personality or his motivation, and then I would back away from that because I wanted there to be a mystery to the character."
