If you were left with any questions after seeing Joker about the fate of Zazie Beetz’s Sophie, Todd Phillips has cleared it up.
On the off chance you have not yet seen Joker, we recommend you do not read this post and have placed the picture below as a buffer.
Speaking with IndiwWire for a lengthy interview, Phillips has ‘definitively’ revealed the fate of Sophie, and it makes total sense.
“He doesn’t kill her, definitively,” Phillips said. “As the filmmaker and the writer I am saying he doesn’t kill her. We like the idea that it’s almost like a litmus test for the audience to say, ‘how crazy is he?’ Most people that I’ve spoken to think he didn’t kill her because they understand the idea that he only kills people that did him wrong. She had nothing to do with it. Most people understood that, even as a villain, he was living by a certain code. Of course he didn’t kill this woman down the hall.”
The scene in question was a shot of Sophie watching the events unfold on the talk show. This would have shown Sophie to be alive when Arthur no longer interacted with her.
Phillips also explained that up until they were filming, Sophie’s relationship with Arthur was real and not in Arthur’s imagination. As they continued to film, however, he and Phoenix agreed that it didn’t make sense and decided to alter it to be in his mind. As to why the scene was cut, it required the film to change the format of everything being from Arthur’s perspective.
So, rest assured, Arthur didn’t kill Sophie. So we guess Arthur/Joker isn’t a totally bad guy… but we’re still not inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner.
SOURCE: IndieWire
