Joaquin Phoenix Says He Was Considered for the Joker inThe Dark Knight: 'I Wasn't Ready Then'

Mar. 15, 2025

Joaquin Phoenixplayed his Joker cards over the long haul.

The actor took home anAcademy Awardfor playing the sinister Batman villain in 2019’sJoker, and recently reprised the role in its sequelJoker: Folie à Deux. But in a new interview onTetragrammaton with Rick Rubin, Phoenix, 50, said he was circling the character more than a decade earlier.

“I talked toChris NolanaboutThe Dark Knightand that didn’t happen for whatever reason,” the actor said, referring to 2008’s second film in Nolan’sDark Knighttrilogy and the Joker role that eventually went to (and nabbed a posthumous Oscar for)Heath Ledger.

As for Phoenix, “I wasn’t ready then,” he said. “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. … I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?”

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Phoenix went on to to say he isn’t sure “whether Christopher Nolan was coming to me saying, ‘You’re definitely the person,' " for the role specifically, adding, “I can’t remember the context of how we met, but I know we met.”

“My feeling was I shouldn’t do this, but maybe he also was like, ‘He’s not the guy,' " he added.

This isn’t the first time Phoenix has given a nod toLedger, who died in January 2008 at age 28beforeThe Dark Knightwas released in theaters.

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The following month, Phoenix alsoswept up the Best Actor Oscarfor his performance. During that speech, he emotionally touched on the “distressing issues” that the world was facing, but said that he saw them as more of a unifying factor than a dividing one, and urged everyone to live with love and compassion.

“I’ve been a scoundrel all my life. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance,” he told the audience. “And I think that’s when we’re at our best, when we support each other. Not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other towards redemption. That is the best of humanity.”

“When he was when he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric,” Phoenix went on. “He said, ‘Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.' ”

source: people.com