Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker 2’ Weight Loss Was ‘Complicated’ by All Those Dance Rehearsals

Just like he did for the first Joker film, Joaquin Phoenix slimmed down significantly for the sequel — on top of having to learn all that choreography.

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The actor spoke about revisiting his Joker diet at a press conference following the premiere of Folie à Deux at the Venice Film Festival (via Variety ). While doing press for the first movie, Phoenix wound up talking a lot about how he lost about 50 pounds to portray Arthur Fleck/Joker, mostly by eating lettuce and steamed vegetables.

Ostensibly remembering the lesson he learned from the last press tour, Phoenix quipped, “I’m not going to talk through specifics of the diet, because I just think nobody wants to hear that.” But he did say, the dieting “felt a bit more complicated” this time around because Folie à Deux is more or less a jukebox musical with a whole lot of singing and dancing.

“There was so much dance rehearsal that we were doing,” Phoenix said. “So it felt a bit more difficult, but it is safe. But you’re right, I’m now 49, I probably shouldn’t do this again. This is probably it for me.”

Phoenix’s co-star, Lady Gaga, similarly lost a bunch of weight for her role as Harleen “Lee” Quinzel/Harley Quinn, though she framed the dieting differently: “I think we transformed into our characters over a period of time and we continued to hone in every kind of detail,” she said (and also quipped that when Phoenix got hungry, they fed him blueberries.)

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Gaga also spoke about how the pair, for all the rehearsing they did, tried to remain flexible while the camera was actually rolling. “We all really thrived in the moment and in the chaos of it all,” she said. “We had to find it every day. What was the truth of the scene, what was the honest moment… You can learn a song, learn a routine for a dance… but that’s not always the most honest thing to do on camera.”

The press conference for Joker: Folie à Deux was also notable for one reason completely unrelated to the supervillain sequel: It was the first time Phoenix was asked about his controversial decision to drop out of a new gay romance film he’d developed with director Todd Haynes days before shooting was set to begin. Phoenix, however, declined to speak much on the matter.

“If I do, I’d just be sharing my opinion from my perspective and the other creatives aren’t here to say their piece, and so I don’t think that would be helpful,” he said.

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