Joaquin Phoenix Opens Up About His Transformation Into The Joker

It’s our fascination, the celebrity transformations to get into a role. How do they mentally and physically prepare for a role? Christian Bale happens to be the most famous, going from a skeletal figure in The Machinist to the swole Bruce Wayne, all the way to the plump frame of former Vice President Dick Cheney. While Bale is certainly the most famous example, Joaquin Phoenix has had a startling physical transformation to get into his role for what appears to be the movie event of the late Summer/early Fall, Joker. Speaking late last week at the Venice Film Festival, Joaquin Phoenix talked extensively about his physical and psychological transformation into The Clown Prince of Crime (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].”

The actor’s shocking 52lb weight loss had some admitted psychological effects that Phoenix said helped him get into the character more. Joaquin Phoenix also stated that he wanted to avoid any comparisons to Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson, or Jared Leto’s portrayal of the character. He went on to say that he wanted to make the character unidentifiable:

“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 going 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.”

Joker is set to hit theaters on October 4th, 2019.

Are you excited for this new take on The Joker? Or are you currently living in the future and have already seen the movie? Let us know in the comments below!