Turns out, Joaquin Phoenix was nearly The Dark Knight’s Joker

It’s a 50/50 hit rate for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker at the moment. On the one hand, 2019’s Joker was a somewhat-surprising smash hit, making more than a billion dollars at the box office against a modest budget of $55 million, and earning Phoenix an Oscar for his portrayal of The Crown Prince of Crime, née Arthur Fleck.

On the other hand, there’s the recent flop Joker: Folie à Deux, co-starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, a masterful misfire that tries to fuse gritty courtroom and mental health drama with low-key musical aspirations. It’s unlikely to turn a profit on its ballooned $200 million budget.

But there’s an alternate universe where Phoenix not only remains the Joker, but did so ten years earlier in another highly-lauded Batman universe film.

Speaking on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton show, Phoenix revealed he was in discussions for the Joker role in Christopher Nolan’s classic The Dark Knight film.

“I remember I talked to Chris Nolan about ‘The Dark Knight’ and that didn’t happen for whatever reason,” Phoenix said.

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

The feeling of uncertainty may have been mutual for Nolan too, Phoenix said.

“I don’t know whether Christopher Nolan was coming to me saying, ‘You’re definitely the person.’ I can’t remember the context of how we met, but I know we met,” Phoenix said.

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

Ledger’s eventual performance earned him a posthumous Oscar, and is seen as the definitive onscreen depiction of the Joker. So it all worked out in the end.

… Though Nolan did have one final hand in Phillips’ interpretation of the Joker. *Slight spoilers ahead.*

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Todd Phillips had wanted 2019’s Joker to end with the character carving his scar-smile into his face — a look popularised for the character by Nolan’s film. Nolan blocked the move. But with Nolan removed from the Warner Bros. studio fold by the time Folie à Deux released, Phillips DID manage to sneak in a character doing something similar in the sequels final moments.

Missed Joker: Folie à Deux at the cinema? Its underwhelming theatrical takings mean it is being rushed to video on demand rental services on November 4th.

• Joker actors ranked: Who is the best Crown Prince of Crime?