Tommy Wiseau's Amazing Joker Audition Proves He's the Only One for the Role

Last month, Variety reported that Hangover director Todd Phillips was in talks with Joaquin Phoenix to star in the stand-alone Joker origin film—a compelling choice to play the Batman villain who could probably give the character a depth we haven't seen since Heath Ledger. But following Variety's announcement, another actor unexpectedly threw his hat in the ring for the role—someone whose personal style and slavish devotion to the art would give us a wholly new and terrifying and possibly even more compelling version of the Joker: Tommy Wiseau.

The, uh, singular star of The Room tweeted to Phillips to "DM me" about the role and then later confirmed his desire to the world. It doesn't seem like Phillips ever actually slid into Wiseau's DMs to set up that audition, but Wiseau has never been easily dissuaded.

On Monday, Nerdist debuted Wiseau's "audition tape" for the role, AV Club reports, and just a few seconds of watching him yell "WHY SO SERIOUS?" in full Joker costume will haunt your dreams forever.

He's tired, he's wasted, and he wants to destroy Gotham. Wiseau's eyes, normally hidden behind his ubiquitous sunglasses, are on full display here, burning out of the screen and into your soul from inside a full face of makeup. And that laugh! That laugh! A dead, guttural cackling that sounds more like a diaphragm spasm than a response to humor! It is more than the human heart can bear.

The Room co-star and Disaster Artist author Greg Sestero makes a little cameo in the video as Batman—oh hai, Batman—though Sestero mostly just stands there as Wiseau screams lines from The Dark Knight at him.

Sure, the three-minute video is mostly a joke (one that Wiseau seems in on, this time) and a solid joke, at that. But somehow, the thing manages to still be scary as hell. If Wiseau's not going to land the stand-alone Joker gig, maybe he could at least find his way into Suicide Squad 2? At the very least, he'd make a better Joker than Jared Leto.

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