After returning to his role of Green Goblin in Spider-Man: No Way Home, there’s definitely newfound hype surrounding actor Willem Dafoe. Even before that reprisal was confirmed, some began to speculate if Dafoe could embody another comic book role, with DC’s The Joker being suggested as a possibility. In a recent interview with GQ Magazine, Dafoe addressed the fancasts, and hypothesized the idea of sharing the screen with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in a follow-up film.
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“There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter,” Dafoe explained. “So it would be possible to have not only dueling Jokers but someone that says 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 fantasized about that. But other than that I am not talking to anybody [about it], you’re the first one.”
In the years since 2019’s Joker debuted, there’s been the question of whether or not it could get a sequel, with most recent reports indicating that Phoenix and director/co-writer Todd Phillips could be lined up to return.
“When a movie does $1 billion and cost $60 million to make, of course it comes up,” Phillips explained with a laugh in a 2020 interview. “But Joaquin and I haven’t really decided on it. We’re open. I mean, I’d love to work with him on anything, quite frankly. So who knows? But it would have to have a real thematic resonance the way this one did, ultimately being about childhood trauma and the lack of love, and the loss of empathy. All those things are really what made this movie work for us, so we’d have to have something that had an equal thematic resonance.”
“I mean, I dunno,” Phoenix said in a 2021 interview. “From when we were shooting, we started to —you know, uhh, this is an interesting guy. There are some things we could do with this guy and could [explore] further. But as to whether we actually will? I don’t know.”
What do you think of Willem Dafoe’s suggestion for a Joker sequel? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
