Zazie Beetz is Excited to Be Working With Joaquin Phoenix on ‘Joker’ Movie

DC Films’ Joker origin movie is pretty early on in production, but it sounds like one of the film’s stars is pretty excited.

During an interview with E! News at this week’s Emmy Awards, Zazie Beetz was asked about her role in the upcoming standalone film. As she explained, she has already gotten pretty starstruck about her co-star, Joaquin Phoenix, who will star as the film’s titular character.

“I’m about to work on a movie with Joaquin Phoenix, and I am just such a huge fan.” Beetz revealed. “It’s just such an honor to work with him. And to follow him and his work, I think, it’s like anyone else. I’m human.”

When asked if she could reveal any details about the film, Beetz played coy — for good reason.

“I can’t.” Beetz explained. “I’ll probably lose my job if I [say anything].”

While Beetz’s character is still somewhat shrouded in mystery, previous reports have suggested that she will be playing Sophie Dumond, the love interest of Phoenix’s proto-Joker. A casting description for the character can be found below.

“Supporting female (27-34) to play African American or to play Latina. Not beautiful, has a hardness to her, a single mother living on the Lower East Side, doing the best she can, trying to make ends meet; worn out by the grind of the city. She understands how the system is stacked against her and the people in her community, how unjust it all is for them. She’s just trying to catch a break.”

In addition to Phoenix and Beetz, the film’s cast will include Robert De Niro, Marc Maron, Frances Conroy, and Brett Cullen. The film is expected to be a 70s-set period piece, in which Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck goes from a failed stand-up comedian to a bonafide supervillain.

“I wouldn’t quite classify this as like any genre,” Phoenix said in a recent interview. “I wouldn’t say it’s a superhero movie, or a studio movie or a … It feels unique, and I think more then anything, and probably the most important thing, is Todd seems very passionate about it and very giving, and so that’s exciting. I think, underneath the excitement of these films, and the size of them, there are these incredible characters that are dealing with real life struggles. And sometimes that is uncovered and exposed, and sometimes it isn’t, and so I always felt, like, there were characters in comics that were really interesting and deserve the opportunity to be kind of studied. And so I think that’s what Todd sees appealing about this idea.”

Are you excited to see Beetz appear in Joker? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Joker is expected to debut in theaters on October 4, 2019. Upcoming DC Extended Universe films include Aquaman on December 21st, Shazam on April 5, 2019, and Wonder Woman 1984 on November 1, 2019.