Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix, who won the Academy Award for his take on the Joker in the first feature film, the actor revealed he almost played the part in another Batman movie. In a new interview, Phoenix said he talked to Christopher Nolan to play the Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight, though he didn’t wind up with the role.
Speaking in length on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin, Phoenix talked about a slew of topics, also how he met Nolan and wanted the role of Batman’s iconic villain. However, he soon realized he wasn’t right for the part.
“I remember I talked to Chris Nolan about The Dark Knight and that didn’t happen for whatever reason. I wasn’t ready then,” the actor explained (via Deadline). “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.”
That person was then 26-year-old Heath Ledger, who was cast in the summer of 2006 and coming off an Oscar nomination of his own for Brokeback Mountain. Ledger would pass away in January of 2008, months before the movie’s premiere due to an accidental overdose. However, the role would earn him numerous accolades during award season, including a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, the first acting Oscar for a comic book movie.
“My feeling was I shouldn’t do this, but maybe [Nolan] also was like, ‘He’s not the guy,'” Phoenix added. “I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?”
While 2019’s Joker earned Phoenix his Oscar and raked in over $1 billion at the global box office, the much-maligned Joker sequel is soon heading to its home release, barely over two months after its theatrical release.
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