Granted, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a version of The Joker in makeup, but where Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight at least bared some resemblance to the Joker we’ve been reading about and watching for decades, Phoenix’s Arthur looks more like a more generic clown serial killer.
Well, as a generic as such a murderer can be.
What’s unclear about this video is if Joaquin Phoenix in this clown makeup is actually Arthur Fleck’s final Joker look or if this is just a precursor to him rocking a more traditional appearance, i.e. green hair, chalk white skin, etc. From what we’ve learned about Joker so far, this movie doesn’t seem concerned at all with staying faithful to the source material, and since there’s no indication that Batman is even showing up, perhaps this is as close as Phoenix’s iteration of the character comes to resembling his comic book counterpart.