Joaquin Phoenix Says He Spoke to Christopher Nolan About Playing Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT: "I Wasn't Ready Then"

Joaquin Phoenix is more than likely finished with his turn playing the infamous villain Joker. After a well-received film with director Todd Phillips turned into a not-so-good sequel, Phoenix will likely move on to some other weird role that will likely suit him. But as it turns out, he almost played the character much sooner.

After the success of director Christopher Nolan’s 2005 movie Batman Begins, fans were excited to hear that we would get his take on the Joker in what would turn out to be a fantastic trilogy. Heath Ledger famously took on the role, posthumously winning him the Academy Award for his performance.

But Ledger wasn’t the only actor Nolan met with while he was deciding who to cast. Phoenix was also in the running, though he ultimately didn’t play the role.

Phoenix explained in a recent interview on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin: “I remember I talked to Chris Nolan about The Dark Knight and that didn’t happen for whatever reason. I wasn’t ready then.

“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.”

He continued, “I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?”

Phoenix said that he didn’t recall if Nolan “was coming to me saying, ‘You’re definitely the person,'” or the context of their conversation, but he sure knows they met, adding, “My feeling was I shouldn’t do this, but maybe he also was like, ‘He’s not the guy.’”

Phoenix went on to win his own Oscar for playing the Joker in the 2019 film.

via: Deadline