‘No Damaged Tattoos In Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker,’ Confirms Zazie Beetz
The upcoming Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix will not be showcasing Jared Leto’s tatted up look.
“No. And I haven’t seen any grillz up to this point,” Joker star Zazie Beetz joked at ACE Comic-Con when asked if this spin on the famed Batman villain will be seen with facial tattoos like his Suicide Squad counterpart.
The film directed by Todd Phillips acts as an origin story for Arthur Fleck and is set to take place outside the mainstream DCEU, where the role is reprised by Jared Leto. The film received a lot of criticism for its re-imagination of Joker, who had a metal mouth and a tatted up body.
Recently Suicide Squad director David Ayer admitted that he went “way too far” with Leto’s look. “I have to fall on that sword,” he wrote on Twitter.
However, Ayer later explained each tattoo, as it has a specific story. The metal teeth were explained by a beating given to him by Affleck’s Batman after he murdered Robin.
“And eventually people will decipher them and understand what’s going on, but obviously they’re contentious, any time you do something new it’s contentious,” Ayer reasoned to Yahoo Movies. “There’s very specific stories and Easter eggs in those tattoos. And even his teeth, there’s an entire story behind that which is absolutely canon. It’s putting his history on his body. This Joker is a little more working class, who I believe could live in our world.”
To come up with Leto’s look, Ayer took his inspiration from real life drug lords of Instagram.
Coming back to Phoenix’s Joker, the set photos show him with the iconic green-haired look and white face makeup, but with a red nose and painted eyebrows. More set images reveal Beetz’ Sophie Dumond, who has been revealed as a hard-working single mother in Gotham slums.
“I honestly don’t think I can,” Beetz said during her ACE Comic-Con appearance when asked to divulge details about her character. “But it’s a really good script.”
Joker will hit the theatres on October 4 next year.
