At last night’s Golden Globes awards ceremony, actor Joaquin Phoenix took home the statue for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama, for his role as Arthur Fleck in Todd Phillips’ Joker. One imagines the actor was happy about his big win, but he definitely wasn’t thrilled about what happened after. Joaquin Phoenix says he was ‘tricked’ into taking journalist questions at the Golden Globes.
Following his Golden Globe win, Joaquin Phoenix was ushered into the press room where he was met by reporters asking him questions. The actor felt tricked by this turn of events and upon being greeted by a room full of journalists he said:
I didn’t know that I was coming up here just now. They fucking tricked me.
Apparently, Joaquin Phoenix was told that he was just going into the room to take photos. It sounds like someone may have misrepresented the situation to him, knowing his general aversion to this sort of thing. Sometime even The Joker is the one who gets tricked.
In Todd Phillips’ Joker, there’s nothing more Arthur Fleck would like better than the spotlight, to stand in front of adoring crowds, enjoying fame and all its trappings. But unlike his character, actor Joaquin Phoenix couldn’t care less about any of that stuff and has frequently shown his ambivalence towards the pomp, circumstance and frivolity of fame and awards.
So Joaquin Phoenix was annoyed and caught off guard having to answer journalists’ questions and that frustration at having been tricked kind of showed in his responses. According to ET, one of the members of the press at the Golden Globes asked Joaquin Phoenix about his process to prepare for the role in Joker, to which he responded:
Isn't this old news? I think I've talked about this for six months. I mean, right? I feel like I answered these questions. You want to hear a different version of it? I can try to change it slightly, or what should I do?
While the journalist was just doing his or her job, Joaquin Phoenix is certainly not wrong. We’ve heard a lot about the actor’s process to become Arthur Fleck, both before the film came out and during its unprecedented box office run. It’s well-trodden ground and although answering the same question over and over is part of the gig during a press tour, Joaquin Phoenix was kind of over it at this point.
The actor was playfully abrasive in response to other questions as well, like when a reporter asked him about the possibility of a Joker sequel. Joaquin Phoenix indicated that the only way he would be a part of the much-discussed sequel is if he felt there was more to explore with the character.
It wasn’t all questions about Joker though. Joaquin Phoenix, an ardent environmentalist who talked about animal agriculture in his acceptance speech, was quite pleased to discuss the fact that the Golden Globes’ ceremony had a plant-based, vegan menu this year. You can see Joaquin Phoenix’s full backstage interview at the Golden Globes in the video below.
Joker is now on digital and it arrives on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD on January 7. Check out our 2020 Release Schedule to see all of the big movies headed to theaters this year.
