Joaquin Phoenix On 'Joker' Sequel Weight Loss: 'Probably Shouldn't Do This Again'
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The Oscar winner shed 52 pounds for 2019's "Joker."
Joaquin Phoenix shocked the world when he dropped a whopping 52 pounds for 2019’s “Joker” in a performance that won him an Oscar for Best Actor. Now, he’s revealing why shedding the weight again for its sequel has been more challenging this time around.
“I’m not going to talk through specifics of the diet, because I just think nobody wants to hear that. But this time, it felt a bit more complicated, just because there was so much dance rehearsal that we were doing, which I didn’t have last time,” Phoenix said during a Venice Film Festival press conference on Wednesday, People reports.
“So it felt a bit more difficult, but it is safe. But you’re right, I’m now 49, I probably shouldn’t do this again,” he added. “This is probably it for me.”
In 2020, the actor revealed he ate an extremely restrictive diet, supervised by a doctor, to achieve his gaunt-like appearance in “Joker.” To transform into the iconic antihero, Phoenix said at the time that he mostly ate “lettuce and steamed green beans.”
The “Gladiator” alum went on to share that his co-star Lady Gaga (real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) had to go through some physical changes of her own to play the Joker’s villainous love interest, Harley Quinn.
When Hilary Swank was 6, her family moved into a trailer park. Nine years later, her parents separated, and she and her mother relocated to LA, where they lived in their car until they could afford an apartment. After winning her first Oscar, she proudly proclaimed that she was still a coupon clipper because "when you open up the paper and you see those coupons, it looks like dollar bills staring you in the face."