Willem Dafoe still wants to play The Joker
Over the past few years, some cinema fans have been calling for Willem Dafoe to play the ultimate villain of The Batman universe, The Joker. Famously, he has already played the evil Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films. Adding to the demand for him to become The Joker were his 2022 comments when he revealed that he “fantasised” about playing the character in some capacity. Now, it appears that the actor is still keen on the idea.
When appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday, the host told Dafoe that many people want him to play Batman’s nemesis, to which he quipped in response: “Hasn’t that been done?” He then added: “You know, talk to Warner Bros… I floated an idea a while ago, but it didn’t quite happen, so…”
Pressed to elaborate, Dafoe said: “Listen, I didn’t really float it to them. I just mentioned it in an interview and then it kind of went out on the internet. But I thought it would be cool for me to play an imposter — like slipstreaming his thing.”
Dafoe’s latest comments follow those he made last year, where he toyed with the idea of playing a version of The Joker in a title related to Todd Phillips’ 2019 movie, Joker.
“There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter,” he expressed to GQ. “So it would be possible to have not duelling Jokers, but someone that [claims] to be the Joker that isn’t the Joker. And that kind of opens up the possibility of an interesting story, particularly if you had Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, and then you had someone who was either imitating or riffing off what he did. I fantasised about that. But other than that I am not talking to anybody [about it]. You’re the first one.”
Todd Phillips is currently working on the follow-up to Joker, Joker: Folie à Deux, which sees Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck/Joker, and Lady Gaga enter the fold as Harley Quinn. As for Dafoe, his next film is the thriller Inside, which arrives on March 17th.
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