Joaquin Phoenix has stated that he met with Christopher Nolan about playing the Joker in The Dark Knight but did not feel prepared to take on the character at the time.
The Oscar-winning actor, who played a version of the comic book villain in Joker and Joker: Folie à Deux, believed he wasn’t a good fit for the role when Nolan was casting his 2008 Batman sequel, which eventually starred Heath Ledger.
“I remember I talked to Chris Nolan about The Dark Knight, and that didn’t happen for whatever reason,” Phoenix remarked on the Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin podcast. “I wasn’t prepared then. That’s one of those things where you wonder, ‘What is in me that isn’t doing this?’ And it is not about me. There is something else. There’s another person who plans to do something… I can’t image what it would be like without Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?”
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Phoenix suggested that the feelings were mutual, and Nolan realized he wasn’t suitable for the Joker either.
“I’m not sure if Christopher Nolan approached me and said, ‘You’re definitely the person.'” I can’t recall how we met, but I know we did,” he said. “My feeling was I shouldn’t do this, but maybe he also was like, ‘He’s not the guy.'”
The Dark Knight was released following the death of Ledger, who was posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.
Phoenix finally felt prepared to play Arthur Fleck/Joker in Todd Phillips’ 2019 picture Joker, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor. He reprised the character in this year’s sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, which was both critically and commercially unsuccessful.
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