After collecting over a billion dollars at the box-office, a stunning and disturbing portrayal of brooding and emotionally troubled character in Joke, actor Joaquin Phoenix has bagged his first Oscar.
Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in “Joker” at the 92nd Academy Awards in Hollywood. His terrifying performance as an isolated loner, who becomes one of the world’s best known comic book villains in “Joker” has fetched him commercial and now critical acclaim.
Joaquin, known for playing brooding or emotionally troubled characters, dropped more than 50 pounds (22 kg) to play Arthur Fleck, an emaciated mentally ill clown who finds fame through a random act of violence in 1980s era New York City.
Dark and unsettling, Phoenix’s Joker is far removed from the comic book characters traditionally seen on screen.
His Oscar win made Phoenix the second person to get an Academy Award for playing the Joker character. Heath Ledger won a posthumous best supporting actor Oscar in 2009 for playing the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”
Phoenix has a reputation for completely inhabiting characters that have ranged from country singer Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line,” to Jesus Christ in “Mary Magdalene” and an impressionable drifter who enters a cult in “The Master.”
