Joaquin Phoenix’s Almost-Joker: The Role That Got Away

Before his Oscar-winning turn as the Joker, Phoenix nearly played the Clown Prince of Crime in The Dark Knight—but fate had other plans.

Joaquin Phoenix may have been destined to play the Joker, but his path to becoming the iconic Batman villain was anything but straightforward. While his portrayal in Joker earned him his first Oscar for Best Actor, the musical sequel Joker: Folie à Deux became a critical and commercial disappointment. However, long before these films came to life, Phoenix was close to wearing the clown makeup for a different Joker—one that eventually made Heath Ledger a legend.

In a recent interview on the podcast Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin, Phoenix revealed that he was once in talks to star as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Ultimately, the role went to Ledger, whose performance became a cinematic milestone. Reflecting on his missed opportunity, Phoenix shared, “I remember I talked to Chris Nolan about The Dark Knight and that didn’t happen for whatever reason. I wasn’t ready then. That’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘What is in me that’s not doing this?’ And it’s not about me. There’s something else. There’s another person who is going to do something… I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?”

Phoenix also admitted that at the time, neither he nor Nolan seemed entirely convinced that he was the right fit for the role. “I don’t know if Nolan was coming to me saying, ‘You’re definitely the guy,’” he said. “I can’t remember the context of how we met, but I know we met. My feeling was I shouldn’t do this, but maybe he was thinking the same: ‘He’s not the guy.’”

Despite passing on the Joker in Nolan’s trilogy, Phoenix eventually embraced the character years later. In 2019, he starred in Todd Phillips’ gritty, Scorsese-inspired Joker, a role that challenged his aversion to superhero movies. Speaking about what drew him to the project, Phoenix told IndieWire, “I couldn’t come up with any answers. That’s what made me feel I had to do it. I felt overwhelmed and terrified by it. Usually, when I’m scared of something, it makes me feel like I have to go towards it.”

Phoenix also reflected on the complexity of the character, which ultimately pushed him to take the role. “I had so many mixed feelings about the character. And I like that. I don’t think we have enough of that in movies, especially in the superhero genre,” he said. “I hate the idea of labeling something because, honestly, I don’t even know what genres are anymore.”

Although Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker remains iconic, Phoenix’s own take on the character has become another touchstone in pop culture—proving that while his path to Gotham’s Clown Prince was indirect, it was perhaps inevitable.