Joaquin Phoenix Reveals The Most Important Scene in JOKER Was Cut From The Film

Joaquin Phoenix gave one of the best performances of his career in director Todd Phillips’ Joker movie. Audiences were mesmerized by what he brought to the character and his performance was rewarded when he won Best Actor at the Golden Globes over the weekend.

In a recent speech he made at the Palm Springs Film Festival, he revealed that the most important scene in Joker was cut from the film. Why was this scene so important? Because it was the scene where he found sincerity. He explained:

"He (Todd Phillips) always encouraged me to fail, which I did a lot. A few weeks into shooting I think it became unbearable for him and we were shooting a scene, it was like the fourth take, and I said well that's about...I don't know what else I can do...that was all the ideas I have', and he said 'I think you should try another one'. I said 'okay', so I tried another one and basically just did some more bullshit, and he said 'I think you should try another one', and he wasn't specific because I think he knew that I had to find it on my own, and I just decided to stop all of my actory stuff and just to listen to the other actor and to just be aware of the space that I was in and we did this take and it felt really good, and he came out and said 'that was a good take'. I said 'yeah, it felt good to me'. He said 'what was that', and I said 'sincerity'. And he said 'well you should be sincere more often.'"

He then went on to say that the "scene that was ultimately cut out of the movie but it ended up being kind of the most important scene in the movie because it helped me find sincerity.”

I hope we get to eventually see this scene when the movie is released for home entertainment! I would actually love to see all of the cuts that led up to that moment where he found that sincerity he’s talking about.