It’s difficult to imagine anyone doing a better job in Joker than Joaquin Phoenix. The actor delivered a tour de force performance that blew critics and fans away, picking up a well deserved Academy Award for his efforts. But with the advent of deepfake technology, we’re able to see what it’d be like if other people had been cast in iconic roles. This has led to a lot of seriously cool videos being produced, with my favorite putting Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. in Back to the Future.
Now, YouTuber StryderHD has placed Jim Carrey in the oversized shoes of Arthur Fleck, giving us a hint as to how the film might have looked if the casting had taken a different turn. Overall, the deepfake is great (though it’s a shame about the awful voiceover) and it seems that Carrey would likely have been a solid fit for the part.
Despite being primarily known as a family-friendly comedic actor, he’s often taken on darker roles – like in The Cable Guy and The Number 23 – and even showed off his dramatic chops in classics such as The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He’s also a popular subject for deepfakes, with one famous video putting him in place of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Right now, Warner Bros are no doubt looking for an actor to portray the Joker in a sequel to Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Reports said that Johnny Depp was angling for the job, but that seems unlikely at this point given his recent legal defeat. Still, insiders claim the studio is searching for someone to play a ‘flamboyant’ take on the villain and Carrey could certainly provide that along with the requisite murderous complexity.
That being said, I don’t see him tackling the villain anytime soon. My bet is that Warner Bros. will go for a younger actor in order to differentiate this new take from Phoenix’s version of the character. Still, it’s nice to ponder how things could have been very different in Joker.