The graphic violence in Joaquin Phoenix’s new Joker film is no joke, according to the actor.
Phoenix stormed out of an interview with Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin last week after he was asked about the potentially negative effect of the violent scenes in Joker.
Collin asked Phoenix whether the new film “might perversely end up inspiring exactly the kind of people it’s about, with potentially tragic results.”
The question clearly didn’t go down well with Phoenix, who responded, “Why? Why would you…? No, no,” before quickly getting up and leaving the room.
According to The Telegraph, Phoenix spoke to Joker director Todd Phillips and an hour later agreed to return to finish the interview. He explained that he had panicked because he hadn’t considered how to answer that kind of question.
Collin explained that in the film, Phoenix’s character Arthur Fleck “could easily be the latest online message-board extremist to take his grievances murderously viral.” The question could have also been in reference to the 2012 release of The Dark Knight Rises. A dozen people were killed and 70 were injured when a gunman opened fire during a showing of the film at a cinema in Colorado.
According to police, the man called himself “the Joker” and had dyed his hair orange.
In an interview with SFX magazine, Joaquin Phoenix himself acknowledged that the violence in Joker was more “visceral and raw” than films like the Avengers series.
“You always want it to feel real, and you want the violence that we have to have an impact,” he said. “What happens in a lot of movies is that you get numb to it, you’re killing 40,000 people, you don’t feel it. While being a fictional story in a fictional world, you always want it to feel real.”
“Everything happens in this movie as far as violence goes, you feel it.”
As for Phoenix’s mid-interview walkout, it’s by no means the first time he’s up and left. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Todd Phillips said “in the middle of the scene, [Joaquin Phoenix will] just walk away and walk out.”
“And the poor other actor thinks it’s them and it was never them – it was always him, and he just wasn’t feeling it.”
Sounds like Joker is set to be an emotional roller coaster. It drops in cinemas on October 3rd.