Gary Gulman mistook Joaquin Phoenix for 'irritating' extra on set: 'It’s my best Joker story'
Gulman has a cameo as a comedian performing a stand-up set
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Your support makes all the difference.Gary Gulman has shared a hilarious anecdote about his time on the Joker set, reminiscing about an incident that led him to mistakenly think Joaquin Phoenix was being “irritating”.
Gulman has a cameo in Todd Phillips's film as a comedian performing a stand-up set while Phoenix’s character, Arthur Fleck, sits in the audience – and laughs loudly, usually at the wrong times.
That laugh was a temporary source of aggravation for Gulman, who struggled to pinpoint its origin.
“The one thing I will say that was a little bit irritating is that when I was running through my set, there were all these extras, and they’d clearly been told that I was doing well, so they were laughing and enthusiastic. And there was one extra who was so enthusiastic in his laughter that it was throwing off my timing,” Gulman told Collider.
“He was just laughing too loud, and right when I was about to say something to Todd about maybe getting the guy not to laugh so loud, I realised that it was Joaquin Phoenix.”
Gulman added of the moment: “It’s my best Joker story. I can’t believe it took me six takes to figure out that the man with the really bizarre laugh was the Joker.”
Joker, which was released on 4 October, has become the most successful R-rated film of all time at the box office.
It was recently revealed that Phoenix was given ample creativity on set, which led him to improvise one of the movie’s most impactful scenes.
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