Joaquin Phoenix is currently doing promo for his upcoming feature film, “Joker” and walked out of an interview.
In a recent interview with “The Telegraph,” he was asked a question regarding the upcoming film’s potential influence on violence.
The new Batman spinoff movie puts Phoenix in the role of Arthur Fleck, a struggling comedian who becomes tragically rejected by the world and goes crazy becoming the Joker. The movie is R-rated and has various scenes with portraying graphic violence. Film critic Robbie Collin asked Phoenix whether “Joker” “might perversely end up inspiring exactly the kind of people it’s about, with potentially tragic results.”
Phoneix was reportedly shocked by the question and walked off the interview replying: “Why? Why would you…? No, no.” The award-winning actor was said to have returned an hour later after being convinced by Warner Bros. executives to complete the interview. He never answered the question Collin had asked him before his departure. But, Phoenix had previously declared that the violence in the movie would be more “visceral and raw” in comparison to other superhero movies. That said, he explained, “You always want it to feel real, and you want the little violence that we have to have an impact,” Phoenix said. “What happens in a lot of movies is that you get numb to it, you’re killing 40,000 people, you don’t feel it. While being a fictional story in a fictional world, you always want it to feel real. Everything that happens in this movie as far as violence goes, you feel it.”
It is not the first time Phoenix walked off a production. The movie’s director Todd Phillips revealed that the 44-year-old actor had done the same thing on set as well.
“In the middle of the scene, he’ll just walk away and walk out. And the poor other actor thinks it’s them and it was never them. It was always him, and he just wasn’t feeling it.”
Joker will hit cinemas October 4.
