Warning! The Following Contains SPOILERS from Joker: Folie à Deux.“I love the rug being pulled out from under an audience,” Connor Storrie admits in a brand-new interview. Storrie (White Terror, Headless Horseman), the young actor tasked with killing Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in the final moments of director Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, is responding to the controversy surrounding the sequel’s “polarizing” and thought-provoking ending. The actor also reveals that he had to keep the big twist a secret for two long years.
Storrie tells TMZ the following during his revealing sit-down:
“I wasn’t even considering what that could mean or where it could go. Obviously, the Joker has a huge following. I’d even say cult following. I just couldn’t believe I was there and what I was doing. It was so under wraps. I didn’t know anything else about the movie except that part in it. They were very serious. I didn’t say anything to anyone for two years.”
For those who haven’t seen the film yet, Storrie’s character is a fellow prisoner who stabs Arthur to death in a distasteful allusion to Heath Ledger’s Joker from director Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. After committing the dastardly deed, the man appears to be carving his own face up, a bizarre nod to the Clown Prince of Crime’s appearance in TDK, not to mention the Batman villain’s infamous “You want to know how I got these scars?” stories.
Storrie was never under the impression that his appearance in the follow-up to 2019’s Joker was created for anything other than to serve Joker: Folie à Deux — and not his own possible future in the DCU. Storrie says:
“For me, it felt very clear that this is Joaquin’s movie, this is obviously following Arthur. So, I definitely saw my place in that. It’s not like, ‘Hey, look, this is where I am going. This is who I am!’ I saw it very much as a part of that story rather than it becoming anything else after that. Yeah, that was very clear.”
Connor Storrie Believed Joker: Folie à Deux Was ‘Polarizing’ Even Before It Hit Theaters
Joker: Folie à Deux’s controversial choices doomed the highly anticipated film’s opening weekend at the box office, and the sequel’s grosses have definitely been affected by the way Connor Storrie’s character shockingly murders Arthur Fleck. But even before the movie’s twist ending stirred up discourse across social media, Storrie believed Joker 2 was inherently divisive. The actor also tells TMZ:
“I think it was polarizing before the movie even came out, first of all, which I think is a good thing. I remember when it was announced that it was a musical and musical-esque, and people from the jump were already like, ‘What?’ And I was like that, too, ‘Like, what?’ Like, what does that even mean or look like? Especially because the first one was so raw and grimy and like brutalist.”
So, I think it was polarizing before it was even seen, and then I think people’s reaction to it being polarizing makes sense. Also, I can’t speak for anyone like Todd [Phillips], or anyone in it, but I also think they knew that was the case, too. I mean, you don’t make such a big swing like that without knowing it gives people the opportunity to not get behind your choices. So, in the long run, I think being polarizing is really good.”
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Joker: Folie à Deux Director Responds to Arthur Fleck’s Final Truth
Todd Phillips’ revelation may be too little too late judging from the sequel’s poor reception and box office returns.
It might turn out that way in the long run, but, at the moment, not so much. Joker 2’s original box office forecast projected the long-awaited sequel would ultimately make between $115 million and $145 million domestically over its opening weekend alone, but it has barely brought in $118.5 million worldwide (per The Numbers), at the time of this writing.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t truly matter at all when it comes to the “bold swing” Storrie believes Todd Phillips took with his sequel. There’s simply no denying that what appears to be the real Joker killing Arthur Fleck quite possibly doomed the picture to a fate even worse than that of Batman & Robin, Catwoman, and Green Lantern in the eyes of DC fans.