The “insane” bathtub scene cut from Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’ movie
Todd Phillips’ Joker was always intended to stand out in stark contrast to the typical comic book adaptation, but things occasionally went so far they had to be left on the cutting room floor.
Not that being a dark, dingy, and desperate R-rated psychological thriller had any noticeable impact on the film’s success when it actually had the complete opposite effect. Such was the buzz surrounding the film that Joker shattered countless records on its way to crossing a billion dollars at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated release in cinema history.
Joaquin Phoenix would also win an Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ for another immersive and transformative turn, which saw him follow in Heath Ledger’s footsteps after The Dark Knight star snagged an Oscar of his own, making the Clown Prince of Crime just the second character to have seen two actors deliver Oscar-winning performances for the same role.
Improvisation was encouraged on set, with Phillips explaining that he’d set aside a block of time each day so that he and Phoenix could play around. “We started doing this thing, Joaquin and I, we called it ‘A Study of Insomnia,'” he said. “It was our own fun little thing like we have an hour left in the day, let’s light this kitchen, Joaquin let’s do something over by the sink or the fridge, and let’s just set up two cameras.”
One of the by-products was a scene involving a bathtub that was so provocative it would have seen Joker slapped with the dreaded NC-17 rating. Phillips wouldn’t even divulge what it entailed when he teased it during an appearance at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, but it must have been explicit to end up on the cutting room floor and subsequently be spoken of in such hushed tones.
“There were two or three other we shot, one that is amazing in a bathtub,” he said. “But I don’t think we can actually include it in an R-rated and it’s not because it was pornographic, it was just insane.” Given his opposition to deleted scenes and extended cuts of Joker being made widely available, the mystery surrounding Phoenix’s antics in the tub remains unanswered.
Unfortunately, that means the mythical bathtub sequence will remain the Holy Grail for Joker aficionados, with the information that it’s insane without being pornographic reason enough to secure such a status. Filmmakers often find themselves sending their features to home video with a bounty of footage that wasn’t found in cinemas, but that’s a game Phillips has no interest in playing.
Laying out his opinion in no uncertain terms, Phillips offered that “I hate fucking extended cuts, I hate deleted scenes, they’re deleted for a reason,” dashing any hopes anybody may have had of seeing Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck cavorting around in the bath doing strange and unusual things.
