Hope you've got your happy face on, 'cause Joker is here to bring a little maniacal mirth
to the gritty, mean streets of Gotham.
Joaquin Phoenix is undeniably the star, but he's joined by an impressive supporting cast
and yes, you've absolutely seen most of their faces before.
Her perfectly coiffed hair is on the verge of iconic status in its own right, and her
name is undeniably fun to say, but it's Zazie Beetz's seemingly effortless charisma and
incisive approach to her characters that's helped set her apart.
That combination of attributes undoubtedly helped drive director Todd Phillips to cast
the gifted actor as Arthur Fleck's scrappy neighbor and romantic interest Sophie in Joker,
though Beetz's track record of holding her own in the company of serious actors didn't
hurt.
That particular skill has been well on display throughout Beetz's still-young career.
If you're wondering where you've seen her before, Beetz featured prominently in the
"Brewery Brothers" storyline of Joe Swanberg's egregiously underrated Netflix anthology series
Easy.
She's also played Van, the no-nonsense baby mama to Donald Glover's Earn on the critically
adored FX dramedy Atlanta.
It's most likely, however, that you saw Beetz hamming it up as Domino a.k.a. the luckiest
woman alive opposite Ryan Reynolds' foul-mouthed anti-hero in Deadpool 2.
"Meet…"
"Domino."
"What's your shtick?"
"I'm lucky."
"Luck isn't a superpower."
"Yeah, it is."
"No, it isn't."
Beetz is set to reprise that scene-stealing role in the still-developing Deadpool spinoff
X-Force, but if you don't want to wait that long, you can currently see her in Steven
Soderbergh's Netflix drama High Flying Bird and the creepy new streamer Wounds.
As Joker spends more than a little bit of time examining the struggles of a life in
stand-up comedy, it seems fitting that Marc Maron would feature prominently in the narrative.
He has, after all, spent the bulk of his professional life making a name for himself as one of the
more insightful comedians around.
It's also a safe bet his hard-earned success eventually led him into direct contact with
sleazy late-night TV producers like the one he plays in Joker, Ted Marco.
Of course, the infamously cantankerous comic has stretched his talents far beyond the stand-up
stage of late, and made a proper actor of himself.
Maron has stolen scenes in supporting roles on comedic series like Girls and he even managed
to score his own show, IFC's Maron.
Most recently, Maron has gotten cozy with Netflix through a brilliantly serio-comic
turn as a floundering graphic novelist in Joe Swanberg's Easy, and very nearly stolen
the entire show as the faded, B-movie director in the streaming giant's lauded "lady wrestlers"
series Glow.
If you're wondering where you've seen him on the big screen, Maron delivered a memorable
cameo in 2016's comic farce Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, though savvy cinephiles
may also know him as the angry promoter who tried to lock the gates on Stillwater in Cameron
Crowe's 2000 masterpiece Almost Famous.
Over the past couple of decades, Frances Conroy has essentially become a career mother on
big screens and small.
She's also managed to turn every mom she's played into cunningly complex characters you
can't stop watching.
As such, Conroy was sort of a perfect fit to portray Arthur Fleck's bedraggled mother
Penny.
While Conroy is sure to bring some serious dramatic energy to the relentlessly bleak
world of Todd Phillips' Joker, every performance in the movie will almost certainly be overshadowed
by the work of star Joaquin Phoenix.
That's okay, because even if Frances Conroy isn't stealing the show in Joker, she's already
stolen our hearts as the passionately low-key matriarch of the Fisher clan in HBO's "life,
death, and everything in between" drama Six Feet Under.
If you somehow managed to miss Conroy's work on that series, it's entirely possible you
recognize her from her work as Alex and Valerie's excessively flighty mom in Jason Reitman's
tragically overlooked Hulu series Casual, though it's far more likely you know her as
Barney's mom Loretta from How I Met Your Mother.
And if you've somehow not seen Conroy in any of those series, you should absolutely know
her from her multiple roles in Ryan Murphy's horror anthology American Horror Story, or
perhaps from her appearance in Hulu's Stephen King-centric series Castle Rock.
"Penny's driving me to Portland.
I'm buying new shorts.
I told her, 'Dale retires, we're gonna find out once and for all if he's got knees."
We suppose it's acceptable that most viewers likely don't know Shea Whigham's name.
But in reality, you should be far more familiar with Whigham, as he's one of the preeminent
character actors in Hollywood.
While his work as Detective Burke in Joker doesn't seem to require much stretching for
Whigham he's played many, many detective types over the years the actor still manages to
put his own peculiar stamp on a character that otherwise might've felt very stock.
That's sort of Whigham's M.O., for the record.
Even if you don't yet recognize his name, he's made a career of bringing uncommon depth
to fringe characters in all manner of film and television projects since breaking through
in the early 2000s, and it's all but impossible you haven't seen his face before.
In fact, you've probably seen it a dozen times or so as the actor has brought his formidable
presence to indie gems like Joel Schumacher's Tigerland, David Gordon Green's All the Real
Girls, and Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter.
He's also appeared in lauded TV series like Boardwalk Empire, Agent Carter, Fargo, True
Detective, Vice Principals, and Homecoming, all while lending his talent to high-profile
fare like the Fast & Furious franchise, The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle, Kong:
Skull Island, and First Man.
So yeah, if you don't yet know Shea Whigham's name, now's the time to learn it.
On the subject of faces you no doubt recognize but names you may not know, you should probably
go ahead and learn Bryan Tyree Henry's name as well.
Henry has been busy, busy, busy of late, earning solid reviews for his work in film projects
like If Beale Street Could Talk, Person to Person, Hotel Artemis, White Boy Rick, and
Widows.
Not to mention, he also contributed his voice to 2018's Oscar-winning hit Spider-Man: Into
The Spider-Verse.
Henry has also appeared in critically hailed TV series like Boardwalk Empire, The Knick,
Vice Principals, This Is Us, Room 104, and BoJack Horseman.
Of course, Bryan Tyree Henry is undeniably best known for his role as hustling hip-hop
star in the making -- Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles in Donald Glover's hilarious and often soul-crushing
FX series Atlanta.
And if you haven't seen Henry's work in Atlanta, we'd urge you to go watch the season 2 episode
"Woods" immediately.
We'll wait.
"You're wasting time.
And the only people who got time are dead.
And if you're dead, I'm gonna take them shoes ... "
Of all the supporting characters that have come and gone in the Batman cinematic universe,
few of them have been more important than Thomas Wayne.
It stands to reason that the actor who landed the role of the Dark Knight's daddy would
need to be more than capable of bringing a certain degree of gravitas to the character.
As portrayed in Joker, that character required a bit of duplicity as well, as the would-be
Mayor Wayne may have more to do with fracturing the psyche of the burgeoning Joker than one
would think.
Phillips and his casting director clearly understood that when they cast veteran character
actor Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne.
Cullen's career has seen countless TV appearances in everything from The Thorn Birds to The
West Wing, from Friday Night Lights to True Detective.
That's not even mentioning his steady stream of big-screen ventures, which includes Wyatt
Earp, Apollo 13, National Security, Ghost Rider, and The Dark Knight Rises.
Before he even reaches his tenth birthday, youngster Dante Pereira-Olson is about to
claim his third role as the younger version of an adult character.
Needless to say, Young Bruce Wayne is the actor's biggest role yet, even if he doesn't
actually get to portray the Batman in Joker.
If you're wondering what the other two roles were, you should know that prior to Joker,
Pereira-Olson's most notable "Young so-and-so" appearance was as the younger version of the
actor who plays the Joker himself.
Yep, that was Dante Pereira-Olson playing the young version of Joaquin Phoenix's Joe
in 2018's harrowing drama You Were Never Really Here.
He also lent his voice to the young version of Jason Schwartzman's Bradford Sharpe in
the Amazon series Mozart In The Jungle.
And it just so happens that Joker is hardly Pereira-Olson's first foray into the superhero
genre, as he's already logged time in Netflix's Jessica Jones, and can be seen as the youngest
Scaramucci in Syfy's adaptation of Grant Morrison's Happy!.
Regarding the manservant who actually raised the future Batman in the tragic absence of
Thomas and Martha Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth may well be the single most important figure
in the long,tortured history of the Dark Knight who isn't actually a Wayne.
It also makes his presence in Joker as big a deal as that of Young Bruce or Thomas.
Luckily, Douglas Hodge is the sort of actor who can bring some serious weight to any role.
Though he's only recently popped up on American viewers' radar, the British thespian has been
acting in various projects for decades now.
If you're wondering why Joker's Alfred looks so familiar, it's likely because you saw him
trading lines with Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Debicki, and Olivia Colman in 2016's
AMC miniseries The Night Manager or you saw him facing off against Jennifer Lawrence in
the spy thriller Red Sparrow.
Of course, Black Mirror fans will almost certainly recognize Hodge as Rolo Haynes, the sleaze-peddling
proprietor of the titular roadside attraction in the "Black Museum" episode.
"A lot of folks just rush behind the curtain, hardly even eyeball this stuff, and then it's
a bunch of one-star ratings on Trip-f---er, and before you know it — "
If you only remember two faces and/or names from this list, you should definitely remember
those of Zazie Beetz and Brian Tyree Henry, because they're about to become two of the
most sought-after talents in Tinseltown.
If you have room for a third name, you could do a lot worse than noting Bill Camp's he's
been one of the most consistently overlooked talents in film and TV for a couple of decades
now, and his supporting role as Detective Garrity in Joker is not likely to raise his
profile very much.
That being said, we'd be surprised if you didn't recognize Camp's face, because he's
also been one of the most prolific supporting actors around in recent years, and even though
his dynamite character work is frequently overlooked, his face has remained quite visible.
As for where you've seen Bill Camp before, he's appeared in films like Rounders, Reservation
Road, and Public Enemies, but had a bit of a breakout year in 2012, delivering memorable
turns in the unnerving indie drama Compliance and playing a dastardly law man opposite Tom
Hardy, Shia LeBeouf, and Jessica Chastain in Lawless.
Camp has been keeping busy since, turning up in awards-friendly fare like Lincoln, 12
Years a Slave, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
He's also scored raves for his small-screen work on Damages, The Night Of, Boardwalk Empire,
and The Leftovers.
You can count the perpetually deadpan performer Josh Pais as one of the most oft-overlooked
talents in the film world.
You can also count us as excited about pretty much any film Pais lends his talents to, because
he always manages to bring an odd mix of intellect and anxious energy to any movie he's in.
It should come as a sort of anti-spoiler alert, then, that Pais brings the same off-kilter
energy to his role as the pseudo-nihilistic manager who runs Arthur Fleck's run-down hotel
in Joker.
That oddball, outsider energy shows through in virtually every performance he's delivered
since his first credited appearance on The Cosby Show.
That includes his work in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sex and the City, A Civil Action,
Scream 3, A Beautiful Mind, The Sopranos, Adventureland, Law & Order, Maniac, and much,
much more.
But if you want to see Josh Pais at his best, you're gonna want to check him out in Lynn
Shelton's pitch-perfect 2013 indie flick Touchy Feely, which also features stellar work from
Rosemarie DeWitt, Ellen Page, and Scoot McNairy.
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