I SUDDENLY REALIZED THAT THIS HELD A LOT OF WEIGHT FOR MANY PEOPLE’

Joaquin Phoenix walked outside the lines for his latest role Mark Daniell

Hunched over a table on the patio of a downtown Toronto hotel, Joaquin Phoenix starts to squirm when I ask him if he knew what he was getting into when he agreed to star in Joker, an origin story that recounts the rise of the famed Batman nemesis.

“Two days before we started shooting, I came here for The Sisters Brothers. I was doing press in Toronto for that film and during those interviews I was asked repeatedly about Joker and I realized that this held a lot of weight for many people.

“A lot of people are really into the character and I didn’t fully know that. It was awful and terrifying. I remember one journalist saying to me, ‘People are really anticipating this and how do you feel about that?’ and I kind of just looked at him and said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’ ”

But Phoenix — who has eschewed high-profile movies in favour of smaller character-driven pictures revolving around loners and outsiders, including The Master, Her and last year’s You Were Never Really Here — was intrigued by the idea of exploring a possible origin of the comic book criminal as imagined by co-writer and director Todd Phillips (the Hangover trilogy).

“There’s something about a Todd Phillips movie that makes his films unique. So I knew that I wanted to work with him,” he says.

The three-time Oscar nominee, who has also played Johnny Cash (Walk the Line) and Jesus of Nazareth (Mary Magdalene), says his interest was further piqued by the idea of doing a standalone comic book movie that wasn’t tethered to DC’s ongoing Extended Universe, which is currently led by Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Harley Quinn and Shazam!

Created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson in 1940, the supervillain doesn’t have a defined origin tale. One popular version sees the character making his nefarious emergence after falling into a vat of acid. But Phoenix says he liked how this new reimagining was grounded in the real world.

Phillips’s 1980s-set story casts Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a gaunt street clown and a failed stand-up comic in Gotham City who slowly becomes unglued as he grapples with mental illness and his ailing mother’s hopes to insinuate herself back into the lives of her former employers, the Wayne family. Arthur’s grip on reality is further loosened as he begins to obsess about getting a chance to try out his act on a variety show led by a cocky late-night host (played by Robert De Niro).

Phoenix, 44, follows a long list of actors who have each put their own stamp on the Joker, including Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto. But he says he didn’t study any of those prior performances.

“I didn’t want to be influenced by anything I might see,” he says, slinking back into his chair. “I want why I’m doing a film to be motivated by me personally and how I’m responding to the subject.”

To prepare for the role, Phoenix, who credited his career to his late brother River while accepting the TIFF Tribute Actor Award in Toronto last month, lost more than 50 pounds and delved deep into researching the effects of mental illness.

“What happened for me is (the character) just started presenting himself.”

Just days after Joker took home the Best Film Prize at the Venice Film Festival, a relaxed-looking Phoenix spoke about stepping into the role.

Joker is unique in your filmography. We’ve never seen you play in the comic book genre before, so I’m curious what sealed the deal for you?

I don’t know that there was one moment. It’s a bunch of small moments added together. Todd (Phillips) always jokes I never agreed to the movie. One day I just showed up in a wardrobe fitting. There wasn’t one moment. But certainly when I met Todd, he’s someone whose films I liked. I’ve always thought his approach to filmmaking has been really unique and he has a distinct voice. But, for me, it’s always a long process where I think about whether I want to have this experience or not. So I don’t know that there was that one moment. I just suddenly found myself two weeks into shooting, making the movie.

Was there trepidation? You’re entering a world where there’s tons of people talking about and debating these movies online.

Thankfully, I’m not on social media. I don’t really read entertainment news. So I didn’t know how strongly people felt about this character. A lot of people are really into Joker and I didn’t fully know that. But it was awful and terrifying when I found out. So I tried not to think about that stuff.

How did you and Todd approach the dark places that Arthur goes to in this movie?

It was an ongoing process. It started six months in advance of shooting. We met and we talked about possibilities and different ways of playing certain parts of the story. Then, I began the actual process of becoming that character. A lot of it came from research and one of the things that struck me was people’s medication and how that can affect them. So we studied that and saw that there were things people were talking about, one of which was drastic weight changes, based on medication. So losing weight was the first decision we made. That has a drastic effect on you not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well when you enter into that starvation mode. From that, different colours we didn’t anticipate started to present themselves to us. The key for us was being

open to those possibilities. We had ideas of how we wanted things to go and the things that we thought were important, but we were open to places (the story) might take us. It was something that was very fluid and alive and at times almost felt like beyond my understanding.

What about the laugh. How did you come up with that?

That was based on people (suffering from pathological laughter) disorder and I watched videos. There’s a description in the script that said, ‘It’s almost painful.’ I thought that was such a brilliant way to describe the laugh. It allowed me to find a motivation for the laugh that was emotional. There are different interpretations as to where that laugh comes from, which I don’t think we ever really answer. Either it’s a disorder, based on physical trauma that he experienced, or it’s Joker, which is the suppressed part of Arthur, trying to emerge. So it’s motivated by something. Hopefully, we found something that’s good.

You mentioned at the beginning not really being into this world, but after going through and doing your own interpretation of Joker, do you have any thoughts on why that character has resonated?

It’s astonishing, right? I don’t know, but typically with heroes and villains, their motivations are so clearly defined. But I think with Joker, we don’t really know what motivates him. I think as an audience it allows us to project our own kind of feelings onto the character. I think that’s what makes him enjoyable. In some ways it’s interactive. It’s something the audience participates in. That’s what I think, that’s my best guess. What do you think?

I think he stays popular because there’s nothing he wants … he just wants to watch the world burn.

This one is a little different. I think our Joker knows what he wants at times. I think this one, there’s something emotional about it. Hopefully, that comes across and resonates with people.