Todd Phillips’ Joker has been hailed as the best film in the DC Extended Universe, showing a never-before-seen origin story of one of comic books’ most recognizable villains.
Part of the reason for its critical and commercial success is attributed to Joaquin Phoenix’s moving performance which earned him the Best Actor Award at the Golden Globes.
Now, the actor has opened up about how he achieved what he calls the film’s most important scene (which didn’t make the final edit).
Phoenix made a speech at the Palm Springs Film Festival where he said that the director made him do a take repeatedly, not having a problem with him failing in the attempt.
He (Todd Phillips) always encouraged me to fail, which I did a lot. A few weeks into shooting I think it became unbearable for him and we were shooting a scene, it was like the fourth take, and I said well that’s about…I don’t know what else I can do…that was all the ideas I have’, and he said ‘I think you should try another one’. I said ‘okay’, so I tried another one and basically just did some more bullshit, and he said ‘I think you should try another one’, and he wasn’t specific because I think he knew that I had to find it on my own, and I just decided to stop all of my actory stuff and just to listen to the other actor and to just be aware of the space that I was in and we did this take and it felt really good, and he came out and said ‘that was a good take’. I said ‘yeah, it felt good to me’. He said ‘what was that’, and I said ‘sincerity’. And he said ‘well you should be sincere more often.Joaquin Phoenix
Well, it warms the heart that Phoenix’s talents as a good actor is behind its achievements but fans may begin to wonder why the ‘most important scene’ was cut. I guess that is a question that is better left unanswered for now.
