Willem Dafoe Has ‘Fantasized’ About Playing A ‘Joker Imposter’ Alongside Joaquin Phoenix

We live in a society… where there are hundreds of mockups of what Willem Dafoe would look like as the Joker. Here’s one. Here’s another. This one won’t give you nightmares. But despite the fan-casting, Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, David Ayer, Todd Phillips, and Zack Snyder haven’t had the guts to #LetDafoePlayTheJoker. But he’s interested.

“There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter. So it would be possible to have not dueling Jokers but someone that [claims] to be the Joker that isn’t the Joker,” the actor pitched, seemingly unprompted, to British GQ. “And that kind of opens up the possibility of an interesting story, particularly if you had Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, and then you had someone who was either imitating or riffing off what he did.” Dafoe said he’s “fantasized about that,” but this is the first time he’s brought up in public.

If the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse taught us anything, it’s that people freaking love Spider-Man. But they also love multiple versions of the same character. Folks, the time has come to enter the Joker-verse.

Bring back Joaquin; drive a dump truck full of money to Jack‘s house; get Mark Hamill and Alan Tudyk to voice animated Jokers; and most importantly, recast Jared Leto with Willem Dafoe. Because you can’t spell “Damaged” without Dafoe (kind of).