Joaquin Phoenix might have given an exceptional performance playing the mentally ill Arthur Fleck in Todd Phillip's gritty character study of Gotham's Clown Prince of Crime, but the Joker star's Best Actor win doesn't necessarily mean that Phoenix was entirely easy to work with on the movie.
Joker just won it big at the Golden Globes last weekend, and now the film is in the perfect position to win big at the 92nd Academy Awards this year. The movie is currently shortlisted for two categories – one for Original Score and one for Make-up and Hairstyling.
According to a report by Next Best Picture, the Academy held its "bake-off" for the final nominations, and during the event, each shortlisted movie got a presentation from the department heads. During the presentation for the Joker, the hair and makeup department revealed some of Phoenix's quirks while working on the film.
"One of the presentation's major focal points was the difficulty of working with Phoenix," the entertainment news outlet reported about the presentation, "He initially wanted to do his own makeup and hair himself, and the film's makeup team had to work out a compromise with him. Additionally, he apparently didn't like being touched frequently. He lost 50 pounds for the film and was said to be "hungry" often. As such, he would walk out in the middle of hair dying jobs and would disappear on set in between takes, so the crew had a hard time finding him for touch-ups. The process of maintaining continuity was so arduous that the person in charge of keeping continuity actually quit. The team would bribe him with crackers to get him to keep still (since he could eat little else)."
Phoenix may have really wanted to perfect his look for Joker, so he didn't really want to rely on the team for his look. The actor was supposed to look frail and sickly for the role, so losing weight was one of the major requirements for Phoenix on Joker. It must have been difficult for the actor to try and maintain his role as Joker while on such a restrictive diet that would keep him so thin.
While these complaints might seem a bit strange to fans, readers ought to be reminded that it's all part of Phoenix's process in getting where he needs to be for Joker.
Joker is available on Digital HD. The film will be released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Ultra HD Blu-Ray today, January 7, 2020.
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