'Joker' star Joaquin Phoenix walks out of interview after being asked whether the film will incite violence

Joaquin Phoenix in his recent interview was asked a controversial question about the film inspiring violence and the actor decided to walk out of the interview rather than answering the question.
PUBLISHED SEP 24, 2019

Ever since the trailer of 'Joker', played by Joaquin Phoenix, released fans have been going wild over the movie. While Phoenix is excited to show people the fruits of his labor the actor was not prepared to answer one burning question in a recent interview.  Phoenix sat down with The Telegraph to discuss his upcoming movie. During the interview, the actor was asked about the violence in the movie and how it would impact people watching the movie. 

Joaquin Phoenix walked out of a recent interview after being asked about violence 

The British newspaper's journalist, Robbie Collin, in his interview asked Phoenix, "Aren’t you worried that this film might perversely end up inspiring exactly the kind of people it’s about, with potentially tragic results?" It is at this point, Collin claims, that Phoenix was left shocked and without an answer. 

"'Why would you…? No… no," Phoenix allegedly answered before leaving the room. The outlet claims that Phoenix spent the next hour talking to a Warner Bros. publicist to "get things back on track". 

Joaquin Phoenix said he worked really hard to nail Joker's laugh  (IMDB)

However, Phoenix did return to the interview and explained that he panicked after hearing that question as he hadn't thought about it. Even though Phoenix continued the interview he never answered Collin's question. Previously, Phoenix has spoken in length about the hard work he put into the character to nail it. 

In his recent interview with Comic Book, the actor revealed that he wanted to make sure he does a good job impersonating Joker's laugh. "I don’t know that there was ever a point. I think from take to take, there were times that it felt genuine and good and there were times it didn’t. There were some takes where I would stop halfway through because I would say, ’It’s not working’ and it was actually working fine,” he said. 

Phoenix added that he drew inspiration from various videos that he watched online in order to play his part well. “I don’t know how much is my laugh. It was really based on videos that I saw of people that have these laughing fits that are uncontrollable. That really was my model," he said.

Joker is set to release on October 4. 

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