Joaquin Phoenix Praises Heath Ledger After Winning SAG Award for Joker

Joaquin Phoenix scored his first SAG Award (for Best Male Actor) on Sunday night for his starring role in Joker and praised Heath Ledger, who also famously played Joker in The Dark Knight, in his acceptance speech.

“Really, I am standing here on the shoulders of my favorite actor, Heath Ledger,” Phoenix said.

Ledger, of course, died from a drug overdose shortly after finishing The Dark Knight.

Phoenix also praised Christian Bale in his speech.

“Christian, you commit to your roles in ways I can only dream of,” adding that “it’s infuriating. I wish you would just suck once.”

He also said that he continually lost roles to Leonardo DiCaprio.

“There would always be two other guys that I was up against and we’d always lose to this one kid… Every casting director would always whisper, ‘It’s Leonardo.’”

"I'm standing here on the shoulders of my favorite actor Heath Ledger." Joaquin Phoenix thanks the late #DarkKnight star while accepting the #SAGAwards statue for #Joker https://t.co/tD2ozkArqi pic.twitter.com/k9q8hwFFrM

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) January 20, 2020