Will He Ever Play Joker? Willem Dafoe Finally Sets the Record Straight
Fans have been waiting for this answer since they first saw Dafoe's evil grin on screen.
Ever since Willem Dafoe appeared as the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi 's Spider-Man in 2002, fans have been saying that he would have been a perfect candidate to play the Joker.
His diabolical grin and disturbing facial expressions may not have been considered faithful to the character of Norman Osborn at the time, though things have changed radically over the years, leading some fans to consider him the best actor to play the role.
But the one thing fans could agree on was that he would be a perfect fit for the most iconic of Batman 's adversaries.
As many actors brought their own unique take on the character, it became clear that the mad clown could be very different.
From Heath Ledger's unhinged agent of chaos in The Dark Knight (2008) to Joaquin Phoenix 's defeated clown Arthur Fleck, twisted to the brink of insanity by society in The Joker (2019), each actor who donned the iconic makeup brought something new to the role.
And sometimes not in a good way (yes, we're looking at you, Jared Leto ). There is room for everyone.
Recently, however, Willem gave a definitive answer to fans' questions during a WIRED autocomplete interview. One of the questions was if he would ever play the Joker, and the answer was not long in coming.
"I doubt it. It's not the worst idea in the world, but I've got other things to do too," said the actor.
It would take a lot more than that to stop the fans from expressing their desire to see Willem in the role one day, considering that he is not completely against the idea.
There's already a lot of fan art floating around the Internet imagining what Dafoe would have looked like if he had agreed to the role.
"If we got gangster style joker sure, most movies have played the [unkempt] animalistic joker. I'd like to see one that is more maniac than mental case," Reddit user hday108 said.
Given that multiple on-screen versions of a character can exist simultaneously, such as Robert Pattison's Batman or the aforementioned Arthur Fleck, who are not part of the larger DCU, there is still a possibility that fans will see a familiar grin completed with red lipstick and white makeup at some point in the future.