Director Todd Phillips’ psychological thriller, now showing at the Toronto International Film Festival, chronicles the descent into madness for Arthur, a mercilessly mocked clown-for-hire and failed stand-up comedian who winds up going down a very bad and violent path. Phoenix wore a wig for the moments when the character’s hair is fully green, but during the dyeing scene, the color wouldn’t stick and his wet hair just looked dark rather than Jokerized.
The actor’s hair-and-makeup crew suggested putting green liquid in a bottle and then having him pour it in his hair, showing how it drips down as Arthur does a strange little dance. It turned out to be a visually arresting sequence.
The film's director and star “were like, ‘This is brilliant,’ ” Phoenix says. ”You look back and go, ‘Oh, thank God that we did that,' because it's just so wonderful seeing the streaks run down his face.
“That's why I love making movies. Those are the things that you are reacting to in the moment that you couldn't have anticipated, ideas like that that come from other people.”
As Arthur’s mental state deteriorates, his look evolves into a reinterpretation of the classic Joker look. From the beginning of the movie, the audience sees Phoenix’s character in clown makeup because of his job. But the actor had been practicing applying the makeup on his own – since Arthur is seen putting on his clown face – and at one point took photos of himself with just white paint on and nothing else, and suggested to Phillips that be Arthur’s façade in a scene, acting as a crucial step in his persona's transformation.
“There was something really haunting about how it looked,” Phoenix says.
Becoming Joker wasn’t just physical – there was an internal journey as well. With a tortured soul that comes out in his writing, Arthur is assigned by his social worker to keep a journal, and Phoenix had one, too: “It was actually one of the ways (into the role) very early on.”
Initially, though, “I had all these blank pages and I didn't know where to begin. ... Then something just unlocked and I just ripped through and filled the pages,” Phoenix says. “I wrote three pages of just ‘step’ after ‘step’ after ‘step’ after ‘step’ because Todd had shown me a picture of the steps that (Arthur) goes up to his apartment building and just the idea of trudging up those steps every day. That was kind of a big moment.”
