Joaquin Phoenix leads Oscar ‘Best Actor’ 2020 race with ‘Joker’

Joaquin Phoenix may finally be taking home the coveted golden statuette with Todd Phillip’s ‘Joker’ come Oscar season next year. Playing the role of the evillest villain in the DC Universe in the forthcoming origin story of the Joker, titled Joker, where the actor puts forth real research using an actual medical condition as inspiration a final end result of a villain which is immensely misunderstood, victimised and vilified, the actor is likely spearheaded to win the Oscar as the Joker after late Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’.

Joker which will debut at the Venice Film Festival later this month, before screening at the Toronto International Film Festival leads the Oscar 2020 race with odds of 9/4 according to NME. Tom Hanks tails the Joker with odds of 3/1 for his role as Mr Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood while Taron Egerton has a 10/3 chance for his acclaimed turn as Elton John in Rocketman and Antonio Banderas has a 7/2 shot for Pain and Glory.

Directed by Todd Phillips, The Joker sees Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a failed stand-up comedian who becomes a psychopathic criminal mastermind eventually becoming the smiling villain Gotham City shudders.

Putting forth yet another of his best roles, Joaquin Phoenix in an interview with an Italian newsmagazine ahead of the film’s premier at the Venice Film Festival Phoenix revealed that he’d “watched videos of people suffering from pathological laughter’’.

 The film gets its release on October 4.