LOS ANGELES: Joaquin Phoenix revealed he became obsessed with shedding 52 pounds for his role in film Joker.
He has been widely praised for his transformative portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime in Warner Bros’ upcoming film.
Although he doesn’t like to talk about awards, many believe this could be the year that the three-time nominee finally wins an Oscar.
The 44-year-old Joker star spoke to The Associated Press about his process, why he doesn’t necessarily want to give a playbook for how he did it and the time he worried Robert De Niro was going to throw an ashtray at his head.
On the 52-pound weight loss, he shared “What I didn’t anticipate was this feeling of kind of fluidity that I felt physically. I felt like I could move my body in ways that I hadn’t been able to before. And I think that really lent itself to some of the physical movement that started to emerge as an important part of the character.”
He revealed Joker’s dance moves were inspired by Ray Bolger. “There was a particular song called ‘The Old Soft Shoe’ that he performed and I saw a video of it and there’s this odd arrogance almost to his movements and, really, I completely just stole it from him. He does this thing of turning his chin up.”
Speaking about sassing off to De Niro’s character, he said “It was one of my favorite parts, saying ‘Murr-AY.’ … Todd loved that too. And when I did that I thought: Is De Niro just going to throw an ashtray at me?”
Joker will be hitting theatres this Friday, October 4.
