Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody has his sights set on a juicy comic-book role: The Joker. Brody was considered to play the dastardly villain in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, but he was passed over in favour of Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous Oscar for the iconic role. When asked about playing The Joker in Justice League at the Cannes Film Festival, Brody revealed that he is certainly interested.
“I would do it if I feel I can contribute something valuable and that the role would be interesting to me,” Brody said. “To me, the villains are way fun! But [studios] don’t offer me those roles. If there is an opportunity to do something like that and play a comic book hero or villain, that’s not something I’m fundamentally opposed to.”
Although Brody’s stunned acceptance speech when he won the Best Actor Oscar for The Pianist in 2003 is a memorable moment, try naming many big films with the actor since he earned the prize, without using IMDb’s help. Even with a low profile, he played an action hero in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, a con artist in the criminally under-rated The Brothers Bloom and recently had a scene-stealing turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Also, his menacing supporting role in The Village showed that he can be scary and comically adept at once, the perfect mix for The Joker.
Meanwhile, there is no word of whether audiences will even see The Joker in Justice League, which still has a couple more years in pre-production. Nevertheless, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck are all signed on as Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman, respectively. (If Brody does join the cast, it will be his second Superman-related film co-starring Affleck, after the 2006 drama Hollywoodland.) While The Joker may not be, ahem, in the cards for Justice League, it would be pretty cool to see the Oscar-winner in a high-profile villainous role.
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