You’d be forgiven for thinking, more than a month after its release, the hype surrounding Joker might have died down just a tad.
But I’m here to tell you you’d be wrong because here I am, writing an article about how Jessica Barden, star of The End of the F***king World, wants to take on Joaquin Phoenix and become the first female Joker.
Luckily, you can’t all accuse me of dredging up old news because Barden’s comments came on the day we were (finally) blessed with the premiere of the second series of The End of the F***ing World – which I think we can all agree is far more exciting than any Joker content, anyway.
If you haven’t managed to catch up on it yet, you can check out the trailer for the series here:
So, to recap: Barden, who plays Alyssa, made the announcement ahead of the first two episodes of the second season getting released last night, November 4 – presumably to take attention away from the fact that the series took its sweet time answering the many questions we had following that cliffhanger.
I mean, come on guys. Halfway through the second episode? Really?
Moving on though, the comments came during an interview with the NME, where 27-year-old Barden announced she’s ‘not afraid of clowns’, before co-star Alex Lawther threw out the suggestion of the Joker.
Hearing the villain’s name, Jessica announced she ‘really want[s] to play a female Joker’, before adding: ‘I’m gonna make it myself, no-one steal my idea.’
You can watch the interview in full below:
Lawther, who plays James, then suggested the role of Harley Quinn – the Joker’s equally twisted lover – for Barden, though she didn’t seem too impressed with the idea, saying: ‘Yeah I know but they’ve already done that.’
The actor then reiterated how much she wants to play ‘a psycho’ like the Joker, something which draws a laugh from her interviewer before she stressed she’s ‘being serious.’ The solution? Well, according to Lawther, the two could pair up. ‘I’ll play Harley Quinn and you can play the Joker,’ he suggests.
Who knows what will happen, as long as the duo reunite for a third season of The End of the F***ing World then we’ll be happy. Although we apparently shouldn’t be getting our hopes up about that, according to the actors.
Speaking to NME, Lawther said it was ‘very early’ to be discussing the third season before Barden agreed, stating:
Anything can happen. I might not even be an actress by season three.
Hopefully that won’t be the case and we’ll be blessed with another season of Alyssa and James’ weird ways and witty comebacks, but who knows?
In the meantime, we’ll just have to comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the rest of the second series will air every night until Thursday, November 7, with another two episodes double-billed across the week.
The End of the F***ing World will continue to air on Channel 4 from 10pm tonight, November 5.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).