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Joker writer-director Todd Phillips has confirmed that Arthur Fleck, the character played by Joaquin Phoenix in the Joker movie series, was never intended to be the real Joker. In an interview, Phillips said Fleck, through Joker and Joker: Folie à Deux, was only an “unwitting” leader that had the title Joker put upon him. This story contains spoilers for the Todd Phillips Joker movie series.
At the end of Folie à Deux, Fleck confesses to his crimes during his murder trial because he comes to understand that the entire system is corrupt and the only way to fix it is to “burn it all down,” Phillips told Entertainment Weekly. This is also when Fleck realizes he is not really the Joker.
“When those guards kill that kid in the [hospital] he realizes that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck,” Phillips said. “He’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore–he wants to be who he is.”
Phillips also pointed out how Lady Gaga’s character, Lee, never uses the name Arthur to describe the character until she tells him goodbye at the end of the film.
“[She’s] realizing, ‘I’m on a whole other trip, man, you can’t be what I wanted you to be,'” Phillips said.
Lee wanted Arthur to embrace being the Joker, and when Arthur refuses to do so and admits to his crimes, Lee has no further use for him and leaves him. Joker and Folie à Deux exist outside the official DC canon, so Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver had the runway to take all manner of creative liberties.
Folie à Deux has GameSpot’s breakdown of the film’s shocking ending.
