Coming out from Warner Bros. Pictures is the comic book film “Joker,” directed, produced and co-written by Oscar nominee Todd Phillips andstarring Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix in the title role.
“Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.
The film also stars Oscar winner Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge and Shea Whigham.
For Phillips, this is a major departure from the films he’s directed. Having directed comedy films such Road Trip, Old School, and The Hangover Trilogy, switching lanes is not an easy feat. The title of the film may say one thing, but there’s no comedy in this film.
In speaking with Blackfilm,com, Phillips goes over his experience working on the film.
Was it challenging for you reinventing your background, going from comedy to doing this such serious movie?
Todd Phillips: It was a hard movie to put together more so because it’s such a departure for Warner Brothers and DC from what they were doing with these with this property; but other than that, as far as my past movies, it wasn’t a big leap for me to make, but it was it was a difficult movie particular for sure.
How dark did you want this movie to be when you started writing it?
Todd Phillips: We don’t of it like that. We wanted to run everything through as realistic as possible. We wanted it to feel grounded. It wasn’t that we wanted it to feel dark. It’s just where the writing took us. Y
When you crafting the story of Joker, the fans know what they’ve seen on TV and in different versions of the films, and you’re craft and his character, which is a totally different take, but you still want to add some similarities that we know of as fans, what was the balance when you’re trying to put this together put this character together so that way, it’s not so disconnected from what we know of joker?
Todd Phillips: Well, again, we thought if we maintain some of the traits that we’ve come to know about Joker, whether it’s the white face and the green hair or the laugh, if we come up with a realistic reason for why those things exist, that was the most important thing, We knew was going to be a departure. Joker doesn’t have an origin story and in the comics, or are defined one. He prefers his past to be multiple choice. We like the idea of making a film about an unreliable narrator.
Can you talk about casting Joaquin Phoenix?
Todd Phillips: Two big reasons. One is he is one of the greatest actors of his generation and everybody thinks that. He can do anything. And the other is, I always look at Joaquin and even before him he always felt like he had a little chaos in him and a little mischief in him, and I think that lends itself well towards Joker.
He lost a lot of pounds for this role. Was that something that you guys talked about? Was it all on him?
Todd Phillips: We definitely talked about it. He was not looking forward to doing it. But I definitely thought Arthur should look malnourished and hungry and wolf-like. I kind of trusted his own instincts when it came to the weight loss. He just started losing weight on a specific date before we started shooting. Then by the time we started shooting, which is three months later, he turned around, he had lost 52 pounds, but we never we never put a goal on it. We just said “let’s get really skinny and see what that looks like.”
Folks who see the film may think of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and King of Comedy and with Robert De Niro, who starred in both movies, in this film as well, was his casting before or the after the script was written.
Todd Phillips: I had approached Bob after we had written the script. We met in the office and talked about it and he came onboard.
Can you talk about fleshing out the other characters in the film?
Todd Phillips: The entire movie is told through Joaquin’s perspective, meaning Arthur’s perspective. There are no scenes that take place that he is not in. So the only development that we could do is around scenes with him. For example, his mother, Penny, we’re only going to learn about her through through his experiences. That’s challenging to write in a way and probably challenging for actors that they’re only going to be on screen when with Joaquin. That was the approach the storytelling we wanted to take. So we had to learn about his mother, for example, or learn about Zazie Beetz’s character, through his interactions with them.
What did you learn in the process of making this movie?
Todd Phillips: I’ve just never been a fan of pigeonholing people. I don’t like when people pigeonhole me, thinking all I can only do is comedy, and then you do something else. So I’ve never really believed in that for other actors or directors. I believe you go where the calling is or where you feeling something.
As far as what I learned during the making of it. This is a hard movie to make for one reason, only really, and that was you’re making a movie where people have certain expectations. That was the biggest thing we were up against was really people’s expectations, when they read the word Joker, when they hear Joaquin Phoenix, when they hear the director of The Hangover. It’s all these things being spoken about before we had a chance to even make the movie. It’s an interesting world that you live in when you’re doing something so on the radar.
Can you talk about the score of the movie and how you wanted it to be when people start hearing the theme or a certain scene?
Todd Phillips: I had heard Hildur Guðnadóttir, the composer, when I heard her score for Sicario 2 and I thought it was beautiful. I wrote her an email and sent her the script. When she called me and said she really responded to the script, I told her to let’s try something different. Let’s start writing music now based off the screenplay, not waiting for me to send you scenes. She started writing the score, literally off of the written word. We used that score when we were shooting the movie, which is really amazing for Joaquin, for me and for the camera operators and the crew to hear that every day that music and those themes. It really informed the film and the filmmaking in a way that I had never experienced before.
Does the film lend itself to have a follow up?
Todd Phillips: No, we don’t have plans to do a follow up. We always envisioned this as one movie
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