Joaquin Phoenix on how losing weight affected his psychology for Joker

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The reviews for JOKER are in (including our own), and the verdict is that star Joaquin Phoenix gives one of the best performances of the year, and an Oscar nomination is all but assured at this point. It became clear from the first trailer his performance would be one for the books, sporting not only a haunting laugh but a complete physical transformation with a gaunt, thin look. Word is he lost 52lbs for the role, and Phoenix explained how dropping so much weight helped get him into the mindset to play the clown criminal.

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The movie from director Todd Phillips premiered at the Venice Film Festival recently to rave reviews, and before the screening, Phoenix spoke about the stepping into the mind of Arthur Fleck/Joker, which he started doing by dropping all that weight (via ET Canada).

“The first thing was the weight loss, that’s really what I started with. As it turns out, that impacts your psychology, and you really start to go mad when you lose that much weight in that amount of time. There’s also a book about political assassins that I thought was interesting, and breaks down the different types of personalities that do those sorts of things [I do in the film].”

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The Joker is one of the most iconic comic book villains of all time – if not the most – giving Batman a run for his piles of money for decades. He’s been portrayed on the big screen by some big names, with Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger giving performances worthy of the character’s legacy. That comes with a lot of pressure, and Phoenix talked about wanting to step away from their work and wanting to craft a version that was completely unique.

“I wanted the freedom to create something that wasn’t identifiable. This is a fictional character, and I didn’t want a psychiatrist to be able to identify the kind of person he was. We were getting into medication and what issues he might have, but [I thought] let’s step away from that. We want to have the room to create what we want. Throughout the course of shooting, every day felt like we were discovering new aspects of the character and shades of his personality, up until the very last day.”

Every on-screen every actor who has stepped into the character's (clown) shoes – whether it be Mark Hamill’s voiceover work or Ledger’s more grounded take – has left their stamp on the character’s signature laugh. For Phoenix, he felt like it needed to be “something that’s almost painful. I think for Joker it’s a part of him that wants to emerge. I think we all kind of assume what a Joker laugh is and it felt like a new, fresh way of looking at it." (per THR).

All the work he did in crafting his Joker is paying off, with critics raving about his work and audiences counting down the days till they can see it for themselves. As for Phoenix wanting to stand apart from the other on-screen Jokers, our own Paul Shirey thinks he just about nailed it. "Phoenix's take on the character is that it's so unlike any other incarnation of The Joker, yet still puts a stamp on the legacy," he wrote in his review. "Never once did I compare Phoenix to Nicholason, Ledger or Leto while watching the film. I was completely immersed in how HE became The Joker, not how he measured up to others." That's high praise indeed.

JOKER is in theaters October 4.