Movies & TV / News
Joaquin Phoenix Would Walk Off Joker Set When He ‘Wasn’t Feeling It’
JOAQUIN PHOENIX as Arthur Fleck in Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and BRON Creative's "JOKER", a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise
In an interview with the The New York Times, director Todd Phillips spoke about Joaquin Phoenix’s upcoming performance in Joker and said the actor would occasionally walk off the set of the film if he “wasn’t feeling it” on a particular day. Here are highlights:
On how his version of Joker is portrayed: “You want to root for this guy until you can’t root for him any longer.”
On having trouble selling Phoenix on it at first, Phoenix not liking the comic book stuff: “He was not keen on jumping into costume in any comic-book movie. It’s not necessarily in his five-year plan — although I don’t think he has one. He never liked saying the name Thomas Wayne. It would have been easier for him if the movie was called ‘Arthur’ and had nothing to do with any of that stuff. But in the long run, I think he got it and appreciated it.”
On Phoenix sometimes walking off set: “In the middle of the scene, he’ll just walk away and walk out. And the poor other actor thinks it’s them and it was never them — it was always him, and he just wasn’t feeling it. We’ll take a walk and we’ll come back and we’ll do it.”
