Question: Is Joaquin Phoenix the first person to play both Jesus and the Joker in movies? It seems unlikely. There are a lot of movies with the Joker and Jesus in them, and it seems like these streams would have crossed at some point before now. And Jared Leto, who played Joker in Suicide Squad, sure has the sort of White Jesus-y aesthetic that would seem to lend itself to being cast as Jesus. And yet …well, anyway. We digress.
Nobody could blame you for being a little skeptical of a Joker movie, especially one that’s directed by The Hangover‘s Todd Phillips, but this looks at least interesting when compared to something like Suicide Squad.
And the cast of Joker, featuring Zazie Beetz, Brian Tyree Henry, Marc Maron and Robert de Niro in addition to our Crown Prince of Crime Joaquin Phoenix, is nothing to sneeze at. Also, it’s refreshing to see DC willing to create projects outside of its interconnected cinematic universe and let filmmakers go gonzo with the source material. How nice not to have to worry about whether it jives with whatever Aquaman’s doing in Atlantis.
So in conclusion: some reasons to be intrigued, plenty of reasons to be skeptical and Phoenix seems to be the first person to play both the Joker and Jesus. Quite an achievement.
