Literally everything about director Todd Phillips’ Joker origin movie sounds ridiculous, from casting a painfully serious actor like Joaquin Phoenix as the villainous clown to creating a Joker origin story that may or may not feature Batman at all, but Phoenix’s supporting cast might be the weirdest part of all. As we previously reported, Joker will also feature Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Frances Conroy, all of whom seem like they’re a little overqualified for what is essentially a spin-off of the big-time comic book movies (even if it will technically be unrelated to Suicide Squad and Justice League).
Now, Variety is reporting that comedian Marc Maron (best known for either his WTF podcast or Netflix’s Glow) is in talks to join the film. We don’t know who he’d be playing, but considering that The Killing Joke—which Phillips’ Joker is said to be based on—features the Joker as a struggling stand-up before he becomes a supervillain, it would be pretty easy to slide Maron in as a very Marc Maron-esque comedian. He could even just play himself, and Phoenix’s Joker could cruelly torture him by saying something about skipping the first 20 minutes of Maron’s podcast.