Warning: This article contains spoilers for Joker: Folie À Deux.
Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for his performance in Joker, and recently reprised the role in the polarising musical sequel Folie À Deux.
However, it turns out he could have put his spin on the iconic Batman villain years earlier had things turned out differently.
Speaking to Rick Rubin on the podcast Tetragrammaton, Joaquin disclosed that he “met with” Christopher Nolan about potentially playing the Joker in the Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight.
However, the Walk The Line actor recalled that this “didn’t happen for whatever reason”, with Heath Ledger going on to cinch the role instead, earning him his own posthumous Oscar win.
“I wasn’t ready then,” Joaquin admitted. “That’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘What is in me that’s not doing this?’. And it’s not about me. There’s something else. There’s another person who is going to do something.”
Joaquin went on to claim that while he wasn’t sure how far along the casting process was when he met with Nolan, his initial feeling was “I shouldn’t do this”.
“But maybe he also was like, ‘He’s not the guy’,” he added.
“I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?” he went on to say.
While most of us interpreted Joaquin’s character in Joker as a reimagined version of the iconic DC Comics villain, the ending of Folie À Deux revealed this to not actually be the case, which director Todd Phillips said was a deliberate choice inspired by one criticism of the first movie.
Joker: Folie À Deux is still in cinemas now, starring Lady Gaga as a new interpretation of Harley Quinn and Industry’s Harry Lawtey as Harvey Dent, another character who originated in the Batman comics.