The Empire Film Podcast #637 ft. Joaquin Phoenix, Todd Phillips, Kelsey Mann

Love that Joker? If so, you've come to the right place, folks, as this week's Empire Podcast sees Chris Hewitt, our very own Clown Prince of Crime, dig deep into Joker: Folie À Deux (and pronounce the title roughly ten different ways) with its star, Joaquin Phoenix [18:50 - 41:01 approx]. And then, doubling down on the Joker chat we talk to the music-driven movie's director, Todd Phillips, about taking big swings with his DC supervillain sequel [1:02:14 - 1:23:07 approx].

With Helen O'Hara having made herself scarce so she can watch the original Joker (her favourite film of all time) about a dozen times in preparation for the sequel, Chris is joined in the podbooth by his number one guy, Bo — sorry, James Dyer — and number two guy (steady now!), Alex Godfrey, for another fun episode. Together, the intrepid pod squad try in earnest to discuss terrible films made by great directors, only to get hung up on one terrible film in particular (Hint: It stars Stan Collymore, shooting in a very different way than football fans will be accustomed to); discuss the week's movie news, including the return of Daniel Day-Lewis to acting, and a host of sad farewells (and yes, we will discuss the loss of the great Kris Kristofferson on next week's show); and review the aforementioned Joker sequel, as well as Sebastian Stan psychological thriller A Different Man. And if you hear all that and still find yourself craving more, then we bring you a sneak peek at our Inside Out 2 spoiler special, now that the film has arrived on Disney+, as our resident Disniversity scholar Ben Travis talks to Kelsey Mann, director of the year's biggest movie [1:42:24 - 1:58:17 approx]. As ever, please do enjoy.

You can listen to this week's episode (and over 600 more) on the pod app of your choice.