Joker 2’s Surprise Actor Defends Its Divisive, Shocking Ending

It’s only been a whole week since Joker: Folie à Deux hit theaters, but the reactions and takes couldn’t be more divisive. Folks who saw it (or just read the synopsis online) have a lot of thoughts on various parts of the movie, mainly its ending. Director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix have already talked about it (and how they came up with it), so now it’s time for the film’s secret key player to share their thoughts on the matter.

After being fully rejected by Lee (Lady Gaga) and placed back in Arkham Asylum, Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) gets approached by a fellow inmate played by Connor Storrie, who’s been watching him in secret throughout the film. The inmate tells Arthur a joke, and then stabs him to death before carving that classic Glasgow smile onto his own face. Just like that, he’s taken the Joker mantle for himself.

Speaking to TMZ, Storrie said that he’s not really surprised the end’s got fans feeling some type of way. Like many, he was admittedly thrown by the news that this would be a musical, considering how “raw and grimy” the first Joker was. But as far as he’s concerned, the polarizing opinions were inevitable, and might be justified in some respects. “I’d rather things be polarizing than things be boring or squeaky clean,” he said. “You don’t make such a big swing like that without knowing it gives people the opportunity to not get behind your choices.”

While Storrie commends Phillips for “having the balls to make such a bold swing,” he said he never considered Folie à Deux as a secret origin story. (It seems he didn’t even know what else would happen in the movie beyond him killing Arthur.) He knows how big a deal Joker is, obviously, but he stressed to not “considering what that [ending] could mean or where it could go. It felt very clear that this is Joaquin’s movie, [and] this is my place in that. […] It is a part of Arthur’s story more than it is becoming anything else after that.”

Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in theaters.

[via Variety]

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