Primetweets Movies
Finding his version of the Joker’s famous cackle was a particularly daunting task for Phoenix, as the film posited a unique take on that particular trait. Arthur’s laughter is pathological, a disorder which causes him to burst into violent, uncontrollable laughter at the most inappropriate of times; part of Phoenix’s method for perfecting his version of the Joker’s laugh was to study videos of real-life mental patients afflicted with this disorder (via Esquire). For a time, the actor was reluctant to employ the laugh, as he simply wasn’t confident that he’d nailed it.
“I think Joker is a part of [Arthur] that’s trying to emerge, and I think that was a really interesting way of looking at this laugh,” Phoenix explained. “But honestly, I didn’t think that I could do it. I would practice alone, and then asked Todd to come over to audition my laugh, because I felt like I had to do it on the spot and in front of somebody else. It took me a long time.”
Phoenix has even said that, to a large extent, he’s still not sure if he got it exactly right — except in a few instances. Speaking with ETOnline, he said, “I thought at some point that it would become easier, but I don’t think it did. I think it became more difficult, actually… There were some scenes where, for whatever reason, it came out and it felt right and other scenes that it was a struggle. Sometimes one take would work and another wouldn’t. I think it was something that was alive, in a way.”
Written by: Looper
