Award-winning actor Brendan Gleeson has revealed that his upcoming outing in the DC movie, Joker: Folie à Deux is all thanks to his co-star Joaquin Phoenix. It was recently reported that Gleeson would be joining the likes of Phoenix and Lady Gaga, who are playing the Batman villains Joker and Harley Quinn, respectively, in Todd Phillips’s follow up to the acclaimed 2019 thriller movie Joker.
With the first drama movie grossing over $1 billion worldwide and earning two Academy Awards, there is plenty of awe and temptation to join the cast of Joker 2, which will see Arthur Fleck (aka Joker) and Gaga’s Harley Quinn meet in a psychological musical on the streets of Gotham. However, in an interview with Collider, Gleeson confirmed that the reason for him signing onto the project was due to how impressed he was by Phoenix’s performance, with who he had previously worked with before on M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 horror movie The Village.
“It wasn’t the material, which is a great way to get me out of having to answer any questions about the criteria. It was the achievement of the first film,” the actor explained. “I worked with Joaquin before on The Village… And so I knew him from then. And that performance, I’m still in awe of it.”
“That performance as Joker in that first movie. It was one of the most extraordinary achievements I’ve ever had,” he continued. “And for Todd to have worked the movie around to allow for that, I didn’t have to be asked twice. I really didn’t.”
Currently, details about Gleeson’s character in Joker: Folie à Deux are being kept under wraps. The film is set to hit theatres on October 4, 2024. So hopefully, we will hear more news in a few months’ time. Fans can next see Gleeson in the comedy movie The Banshees of Inisherin, which is out in cinemas on October 21, 2022.