‘Joker’s Zazie Beetz Reveals the Movie was Continuously Re-Written During Filming

The Sundance Film Festival is in full swing and actors are out there promoting an array of new films, including ones showing at the festival and others that just have interviewers incredibly curious.

While discussing her new movie Wounds alongside the director, Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow), and co-star Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name, The Man From U.N.C.L.E), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2, Atlanta) was asked about her upcoming DC Extended Universe film, Joker.

While the actress could not divulge much information, she was quick to share that the script is “great,” however, she revealed that lots of changes happened during filming.

“We rewrote the whole thing while we were shooting it,” she said. “Literally, we would go into Todd [Phillips]’ trailer and then write the scene for the night and then do it.”

“Man, the writer of that script is going to be so pissed to hear you say that,” Hammer joked.

“He was there, too, he was helping out,” Beetz clarified.

Joker was written the film’s director, Todd Phillips (The Hangover, War Dogs) along with Scott Silver (The Fighter, 8 Mile).

“During hair and make-up, we’d memorize those lines and then do them, and then we’d reshoot that three weeks later. We had to do everything then because Joaquin [Phoenix] had lost so much weight that we couldn’t do reshoots later on so we were figuring it out,” she explained. “But Todd’s quick at getting stuff done so we always had extra time. Which was great.” she added.

The new Joker film stars Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line, Her) in the titular role alongside Robert de Niro (Taxi Driver, Silver Linings Playbook) who will be playing Murray Franklin with Beetz as Sophie Dumond. The film will also feature Shea Whigham (Homecoming, Kong: Skull Island) and Frances Conroy (American Horror Story, Six Feet Under).

According to the IMDB plot description, this take on the iconic villain follows “a failed stand-up comedian” who is “driven insane and becomes a psychopathic murderer.”

While some of the MTV interview was focused on Joker, Beetz is at Sundance to promote Wounds, which will be premiering at the festival. In addition to her and Hammer, the horror film also stars Dakota Johnson (Suspiria, Bad Times at the El Royale) and Brad William Henke (Orange is the New Black, Bright) and follows a bartender in New Orleans who begins to experience “disturbing and mysterious things” after finding a phone.

In addition to Wounds and Joker, Beetz is also expected to reprise her role of Domino in the upcoming X-Force movie. She can also be seen in 2019’s Against All Enemies, Lucy in the Sky, and Meet Me in a Happy Place.

Joker is expected to hit theaters on October 4, 2019.