‘Joker’ Director Todd Phillips Wanted Joaquin Phoenix’s

Joaquin Phoenix misplaced 52 kilos to play “Joker” within the upcoming movie after director Todd Phillips stated he needed his character to look “wolf-like and malnourished and hungry.”

“Neither of us put a number on it,” Phillips advised TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman in an interview final Friday. “He just started losing weight. When we finally looked at what he lost, it was 52 pounds. He goes hard. That’s my boy, I love him so much.”

“Joker” goes extensive on October four and is a “deep-dive character study” of the famed Batman villain “in the vein of a Sidney Lumet/Martin Scorsese picture,” in line with Phillips. Phoenix is launched to audiences as Arthur Fleck, a social outcast who begins to insurgent towards the world round him.

Phillips stated that whereas Phoenix dedicated to shedding all the burden to get into character, Phoenix wasn’t methodology performing whereas on set.

“He’s not someone who was lost in this pain,” Phillips stated. “People would be surprised that it was a light set. We had a lot of fun. You can Google image search us on set because of the paparazzi. Ninety percent of them were laughing him I off in a corner somewhere.”

Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in 2008’s “The Dark Knight” — which received him a posthumous Academy Award — additionally reportedly went via a rigorous transformation in the course of the filmmaking course of.

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” the late actor advised the New York Times in 2007 in preparation for the movie. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.”

But, Phillips made it clear Ledger was not in thoughts whereas crafting Phoenix’s character.

“We made a thing about not looking back at Jack Nicholson, Heath and Jared Leto because it would paralyze us with fear to live up to these things,” he stated.”We simply needed to faux like they didn’t exist to have the ability to do it in its personal area.”

More Hollywood actors have taken the problem of dramatic weight reduction or achieve within the latest years (see: Christian Bale in “Vice” and Adam Driver in “Silence”), and Phoenix himself has been right here earlier than, too. He stated he Phoenix has admitted to gaining weight for the 2010 mockumentary “I’m Still Here” after which he reportedly misplaced the added weight for 2012’s “The Master.”

Also Read: As ‘Joker’ Approaches, Regal Cinemas Says No Film Is ‘a Cause or a Signal for Violence’

Phoenix just lately stated fluctuating weight for a job earlier than made doing it for “Joker” simpler.

“And so, it was something that I’ve done before and… I swore when I did it before that I’d never do it again. But, it seemed like it was very important for the character and I think it ended up affecting me in ways that I hadn’t anticipated,” he advised Entertainment Tonight.

“Joker” has come below criticism for depicting a disturbed supervillain who goes unpunished within the movie for his violent acts. Five relations of victims who died within the 2012 theater taking pictures in Aurora, Colorado urged Warner Bros. — the studio behind “Joker” — to make a donation to charities that help victims of gun violence.

U.S army personnel have additionally been warned a few potential risk of violence due to the film. “Posts on social media have made reference to involuntary celibate (“incel”) extremists replicating the 2012 theater taking pictures in Aurora, Colorado, at screenings of the ‘Joker’ film at nationwide theaters, iO9 reported.

Todd Phillips just lately pushed again on the rhetoric, saying “we didn’t make the movie to push buttons.” Warner Bros. responded to the letter, saying that “Joker” was not meant as an endorsement of real-world violence.