JOKER: Thomas Wayne Actor Brett Cullen Reveals What Todd Phillips Told Him About That Twist - SPOILERS

In a new interview, Joker star Brett Cullen reveals what director Todd Phillips told him about that shocking Thomas Wayne twist and he appears to confirm a major fan theory. Hit the jump for details...

By JoshWilding - Oct 07, 2019 01:10 AM EST

Filed Under: Joker

In Joker, Penny Fleck claims that she had an affair with Thomas Wayne and that Arthur is his illegitimate son. He later denies that and paperwork in Penny's medical records seemingly backs his story up; however, when Arthur is transforming himself into Joker, we see a photo of Penny signed by Thomas that might just confirm that they did indeed have an affair.

Now, actor Brett Cullen (who played Thomas Wayne) has shed some light on this, and it sounds like there may indeed have been more to the billionaire's story than meets the eye.

"The idea that the Joker is an illegitimate child that didn't get anything from the Wayne family is a very compelling motivation for his character's hatred," Cullen explains in regards to Arthur. "This movie makes you feel for Arthur, when you see him struggling with his mother [Penny]."

"The backstory was that Arthur's mother had worked for Thomas in his home, and she was a beautiful woman who Thomas was attracted to and it led to a physical relationship," Cullen added when asked about his discussions with Todd Phillips about Wayne's motivations. "Later in life, she's in and out of mental institutions. And in my mind, Thomas Wayne put her there."

While the movie leaves his role in Arthur's conception a mystery, evidence does appear to be mounting that Thomas is his father. That certainly helps make Joker's ending even more intriguing, and assuming Bruce does become Batman in this world, his relationship with the Clown Prince of Crime would be extremely unique.

What do you guys think?

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up Joker moments we can't believe were in the movie!

Arthur's Horrible History

After his mother makes some bold claims about Arthur being Thomas Wayne's son, he tracks down her medical records and learns some horrible and shocking truths about his past.

It turns out that Penny allowed her boyfriends to abuse Arthur and by the time the authorities got involved, he was found chained to a radiator with serious injuries and head trauma that goes some way in explaining why he's ended up with that uncontrollable laugh.

Child abuse is never a nice subject to broach and the fact it's the root of some of Arthur's issues will really stick with you. It's also the darkest take on this character's history to date.

Penny Fleck's Death

Shortly after these revelations, Arthur visits his mother in the hospital (she suffered a stroke after being questioned by police when they suspect that he may be responsible for some killings we'll address a little later in this post).

Things take a very dark turn, though, when he pulls the pillow from beneath Penny's head and proceeds to smother her to death as she weakly tries to fight him off. Given how close they're portrayed as being, it's clear he's completely cracked at this point and the ease with which her murders her is downright staggering.

What Happens To Sophie?

This...this is really dark. While the reveal that Arthur's dates with Sophie were all in his head aren't massively shocking, him letting herself into his apartment and taking a seat is a tense and frightening scene, especially when she's clearly terrified to find her oddball neighbour sitting there.

As he slowly turns to look at her, he puts his fingers to his head and mock shoots himself (something which she jokingly did when they first met in the elevator).

The next thing we see is him leaving but sirens are ominously heard outside by the time he returns to his apartment and it's hard to escape the feeling that he's done something horrible to the woman he's clearly obsessed with. Alas, we're left to wonder that is for ourselves.

Finishing The Job

With a gun in his pocket, Arthur defends himself during a subway attack from three Wall Street guys by gunning them down. That leads to some pretty violent imagery but the darker side of Arthur's psyche becomes clear when he follows one of the men he wounded out on to the platform.

Stalking his prey, he shoots the man in the back before walking up to him and putting another bullet in his back. Despite being mentally ill, Arthur clearly knows that he needs to cover his tracks and is willing to go to some pretty shocking lengths in order to do so as is evident by this bloody scene.

Arthur Meets His "Brother"

Convinced that Thomas Wayne is his father, Arthur catches a train to Wayne Manor where he crosses paths with the young Bruce. While it all starts off innocently enough, things get weird when he puts his fingers in the youngster's mouth and forces him to smile. "That's better," he says before being interrupted by Joker's take on Alfred Pennyworth.

Despite being told that there's no way he's Thomas' son, Arthur doesn't take "no" for an answer and starts choking Alfred through the gate. Given how many times the comic book version of the character has targeted Batman's loyal butler, this clash isn't overly surprising, but it is a lot more violent that what we've seen in the past.

Cold-Blooded Killer

After learning that his mother has died, a couple of Arthur's co-workers pay him a visit. One of them is clearly worried as he gave Arthur the gun he used to kill those Wall Street guys. There's something a little sinister about their relationship but that's never really elaborated on.

Either way, when they come face to face again, Arthur stabs him in the neck with a knife before shoving it straight into his eye. He then grabs his head and repeatedly smashes it into the wall.

Covered in blood, he allows his other co-worker (a little person) to leave but things get darkly comic when he's unable to reach the lock on the door and Arthur pauses him to say thanks for always being nice to him in a scene you will almost certainly expect to end with more bloodshed.

Riots In Gotham City

Inspired by the clown who killed those three men on the subway, Gotham City's oppressed rise up and start rioting. As he's being pursued by the cops, Arthur inadvertently causes another riot to begin which culminates with those detectives being dragged to the floor and brutally attacked.

Considering the fact we're used to seeing Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock as the heroes, it makes for uncomfortable viewing to see what happens to these two and we later learn that they're in critical condition, something Arthur can't help but crack a smile about when he hears.

Meeting Murray Franklin

Now known as "Joker," Arthur finally gets to meet his idol. However, he's only there to be ridiculed and as the tension increases, this early version of the Clown Prince of Crime pulls out his gun and shoots Robert DeNiro's talk show host in the head.

It's a bloody and violent end to the character and one that's emphasised when Joker empties the rest of the bullets in the chamber into Franklin's chest. All of this is broadcast live on television and while we've only had a handful of comic book movies about bad guys, not even Venom eating some poor sucker was as gory as this very real moment.

A Haunting Smile

In the leaked screenplay for Joker, Arthur was going to cut his face open and create a smile. However, that was probably deemed a little too similar to the version of the character we saw in The Dark Knight and some moviegoers would have probably assumed that this movie was meant to serve as an origin story for Heath Ledger's iconic take on him.

Instead, Arthur paints on his smile with blood and it's every bit as memorable and haunting.

Honestly, it's hard to imagine a visual like this making it into a PG-13 comic book movie and it's way more disturbing that the weird smile Jared Leto's Joker had in 2016's Suicide Squad.

One Final Kill

The movie ends with Joker locked up but he's clearly grown used to killing as we see him walk out of a meeting with his psychiatrist leaving bloody footprints in his wake.

Clearly, Arthur has caved her head in with his feet and while we're probably not going to get a sequel, this definitely feels like it could be setting the stage for The Joker to return and square off with Batman. That's probably never going to happen but it's interesting to think about what a clash like that might look like, isn't it?

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49 Comments

1 2

mAdFaD - 10/7/2019, 1:20 AM

When he opens his mothers file, there are adoption papers in there.

rebellion - 10/7/2019, 1:27 AM

when handling such a big property, studios need to be careful to give a proper version of the character to the audiences, one they can build on later and one that condenses decades of comics storytelling. marvel mastered that.
dc screwed that up. most people will now think bats and joker are brothers (i heard people commenting that on way out of cinema).. and it also clashes with the version they saw in suicide squad..
joker isn't a bad movie by any means, it's actually pretty damn good. when you borrow from taxi driver, king of comedy, slap 'joker' on the poster.. you'd have to be simon kinberg to screw that up.
but no matter how good it is, in the long run, it's bad for the brand. the most popular version of the character isn't the 'right one', studios will keep making joker and batman movies with changing/clashing origins, we will never get to the meat of the dc universe in films like we did with marvel. it's a damn shame.
it's like general audiences are pupils who will never master basic algebra and can never build on that basic knowledge. and the blame is on WB/DC, cuz they suck as teachers.

NinnesMBC - 10/7/2019, 2:49 AM

Pretty sure they added that handwriting behind the photo to continue the speculation. Smart.

Unless it was another thing Arthur somehow kept imagining somewhere in his subconscious.

Not that it would matter much in his case of being a good father because he never once cared about finding Arthur the help he needed after all he went through.

IronMandarin - 10/7/2019, 4:09 AM

Thank god the twist wasn't actually that the Joker is Batman's big brother. I remember reading this idea as a rumor a few months ago before the film came out and dismissing it as too stupid to be true.

And before someone says that its still ambiguous, we get three different accounts in the film that its not true.

Alfred
Thomas
The file at Arkham

That's too much evidence against Arthur for him to be related to Bruce and its also enough evidence to convince him that his mother was lying.

rebellion - 10/7/2019, 4:27 AM

@IronMandarin - they are being real smart and leaving it ambiguous. artsy!

RageDriver2401 - 10/7/2019, 4:59 AM

I liked that twist. It's kinda like the Lincoln March/Thomas Wayne Jr. plot in Court of Owls.

He could/couldn't be Bruce's brother. Who knows? It's presents a nice conundrum for the hero who has to constantly fight him.

Anyway, we aren't going to see this Joker as any sort of cannon character, but would've been a nice origin.

thewanderer - 10/7/2019, 5:03 AM

I quite enjoyed the film, but it was very uneven. While Phoenix is great throughout, the first 45-50 minutes is borderline boring. The last hour or so is great though.

The other issue I had is with the Joker portrayal itself. I loved his Joker portrayal, but many of the mannerisms he shows as the Joker, he showed no hint of as Arthur. It was as if Phoenix started playing a completely different character when he put on the makeup, rather than seeing a natural transition in the Joker. To put it as an example, we see a sure-fire confident, happy and joyful Joker dancing down the steps in the third act. There was no buildup in character traits of Arthur to this moment.

1 2

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JOKER: Thomas Wayne Actor Brett Cullen Reveals What Todd Phillips Told Him About That Twist - SPOILERS

In a new interview, Joker star Brett Cullen reveals what director Todd Phillips told him about that shocking Thomas Wayne twist and he appears to confirm a major fan theory. Hit the jump for details...

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