An iconic character, Joker is one of DC’s best creations of all time. In a recent article, we revealed that he was almost killed off in his debut appearance, which would have been one of the worst decisions in the history of comic books. Thanks to a visionary editor, we are now able to enjoy the full scope of the Joker’s madness.

The character has been portrayed on the screen by several actors in live-action format, with the most recent Joker being Joaquin Phoenix, who played an alternative version of the character known as Arthur Fleck in Joker and its sequel.

But, while his original performance was lauded, the second movie was a failure that everyone wants to forget about as soon as possible. In light of that, did you know that Phoenix almost never made it to Arthur Fleck? The actor revealed and confirmed that he was offered the role of the Joker years before Phillips’ movie.

And while Phoenix won the Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker, he is actually not the first actor to win the award for portraying that same character.

Before him, the award was posthumously given to Heath Ledger for his portrayal of the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. This performance is absolutely amazing, and, as you might assume, it has gone down in history as one of the best on-screen performances of all time.

Ledger’s dedication to the role ultimately cost him his life, sadly, and many feared that Phoenix might end up scarred as well. However, Phoenix managed to “survive” the ordeal of the role, and his performance in the first movie is now equally praised as a masterpiece.

But did you know that Phoenix almost played Ledger’s role back then? Yes, the actor recently revealed that Nolan offered him the role, but added that he simply wasn’t ready for the role at the time:

I talked to Chris Nolan about “The Dark Knight” and that didn’t happen for whatever reason, I wasn’t ready then…I can’t imagine what it would be if we didn’t have Heath Ledger’s performance in that film, right?

Source: ComicBookMovie.com

Can you imagine Phoenix instead of Ledger in The Dark Knight? Well, try to disregard what you know about Joker and approach the idea from a fresh perspective. It looks believable, doesn’t it?

We’re certain that Phoenix would have aced the role back then had Nolan cast him, and while we can only wonder what it would have looked like, we have to – at the same time – confirm that Ledger is now irreplaceable and that we can only agree with Phoenix’s statements about the role.

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