After taking on the role of Domino in last year’s Deadpool 2, actress Zazie Beetz is swapping the Marvel universe for DC later this year as she stars alongside Joaquin Phoenix in Warner Bros. and DC Film’s standalone Joker movie from director Todd Phillips.
During an interview with MTV News (via Collider), Beetz has been speaking about Joker’s production, revealing that the screenplay was constantly being rewritten on set during filming, often on the same day as a scene was being shot.
“The script was great,” said Beetz. “We rewrote the whole thing while we were shooting it. Literally, we would go into Todd’s trailer and write the scene for the night and then do it. During hair and makeup we’d memorize those lines and then do them and then we’d reshoot that three weeks later.”
Now, typically this wouldn’t bode well for a film, but that may not be the case in this instance as it turns out there was a very specific reason for the rewrites: given Joaquin Phoenix’s weight loss for his role as the Clown Prince of Crime, it would not have been possible to carry out additional photography at a later date:
“We had to do everything then because Joaquin had lost so much weight that we couldn’t do reshoots later on so we were figuring it out. But Todd’s quick at getting stuff done so we always had extra time.”
SEE ALSO: Why Joker could be the best DC movie since The Dark Knight Rises
Joker centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. Todd Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.
Joker is set for release on October 4th 2019 and stars Joaquin Phoenix (The Sisters Brothers), Robert De Niro (Goodfellas), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Bill Camp (Red Sparrow), Frances Conroy (American Horror Story), Brett Cullen (Narcos), Glenn Fleshler (Billions), Douglas Hodge (Penny Dreadful), Marc Maron (GLOW), Josh Pais (Motherless Brooklyn), Shea Whigham (Kong: Skull Island), Douglas Hodge (Robin Hood) and Dante Pereira-Olson (You Were Never Really Here).
