Joaquin Phoenix Shares His Excruciating Diet for ‘Joker’: “You Really Start To Go Mad”

‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ premiered last week to an overwhelmingly negative reception. The movie currently has a 33% approval rate by critics and a 31% approval rate by audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie is shaping up to be a box office flop, largely due to the audiences claiming they did not expect the sequel to be a musical. Both Lady Gaga and Todd Phillips denied that the movie is a musical, despite describing it as such.

No matter how bad, or boring the movie was, you can’t deny that Joaquin Phoenix acted his heart out in the movie. One of the most notable things regarding his character is dramatic body transformation, Arthur Fleck is skeletally thin.

Apparently, Phoenix had to lose 50 pounds (22.67 kg) in order to look unhealthy and physically ill for the role. You can’t just lose 50 pounds overnight. The actor stated he had to follow a specific restricting diet in order to appear malnourished. He had to lose the weight in a short amount of time to get that specific “ribs sticking out” look for the movie.

It’s something I’ve done before and you work with a doctor regimented and overseen and safe.

In a time where Hollywood actors are speaking out against dramatic bodily transformations and their toll on one’s health and body, it’s good that this was overseen by doctors.

As always, it’s not only your physical health that’s affected. As Phoenix revealed further in the interview, it starts to affect your mind as well.

As it turns out, that impacts your psychology. And you really start to go mad when you lose that much weight in that amount of time.

As far as the specifics of the diet go, Phoenix debunked the rumors that he was only eating an apple a day, he revealed that other vegetables were involved as well:

It wasn’t an apple a day. No, you’ve also got lettuce and steamed green beans.

Source: Access Hollywood

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