Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips Weigh In

The choices made at the end of Joker: Folie à Deux are arguably the biggest reasons why the film has been so polarizing. While some find them interesting and insightful, many others find them maddening and subversive. Two people who do like the ending, though, are the film’s co-writer and director Todd Phillips and its star Joaquin Phoenix, and in a new interview, the pair spoke in detail about the ending.

Speaking to IGN, Phillips and Phoenix discussed Arthur’s choice to leave behind Joker—along with the fact that he dies, and the person who kills him. Let’s start with the idea of what these movies have been about in a larger sense which, as you’ll read, speaks to the person who kills Arthur at the end of the film.

“One of the things that people never understood about the first movie was, ‘I don’t get it. He visits Bruce Wayne and he’s 30 years older than Bruce Wayne. What kind of geriatric Joker is going to fight in the future?’” Phillips said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever saw the script of the first movie. The first film is called Joker. It’s not called The Joker, it’s called Joker. And the first film under the script always said ‘An origin story.’ Never said ‘THE origin story.’ It was this idea that maybe this isn’t THE Joker. Maybe this is the inspiration for the Joker. So, in essence at the end of this movie, the thing you’re being left with is ‘Wait, what is that thing happening behind him? Is that the guy?’”

Okay, we guess that makes sense. It does also go along with Phillips idea of Arthur’s mindset at the end of the film right before he’s murdered. “I think Arthur has found peace with the idea, with the struggle that it’s okay to be yourself,” Phillips said. “And that’s really what he’s always struggled with, you know what I mean? I like to think he died at peace in a way being himself. The kid says to him, ‘You want to hear a joke?’ And even though he thinks maybe it’s [Lee waiting to visit him] downstairs. We don’t even know what’s downstairs, but that sort of optimism that Arthur has, that’s still in him. He’s like, ‘Well, yeah, okay, of course’ because he knows that feeling of wanting to make somebody laugh. So he gives the kid that moment, right? Obviously it goes bad because, again, everything goes bad for Arthur, but I always think that’s such a beautiful moment where it’s like Arthur still has hope.”

Phoenix echoed those sentiments. “There’s a warmth in that scene, which is nice,” the Oscar winner said. “That’s all that I was thinking about that I was after, is here’s this young man who’s telling me a joke and he’s nervous to tell me the joke, I can tell that he’s nervous, and I’m going to hear him out. And it’s a pretty good setup.”

So, basically, Phillips is saying the films are about a man who goes through a journey to find himself, finally does, and dies in the process. Then, along the way, he inspires others to take his persona to the next level and, well, we’ll see where it goes from there.

If you’d like to read more from Phillips and Phoenix, head over to IGN. Joker: Folie à Deux is now in theaters.

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