Joaquin Phoenix improvised one of his creepiest scenes in 'Joker'

Joaquin Pheonix's portrayal of the Joker in the recently-released movie of the same name has got everyone talking. From those who've found themselves aroused by the villain to others who found it so dark and disturbing that they walked out of movie theatres.

Now, while movies do have scripts, actors are artists in their own right, and occasionally deviate from what's been initially asked of them once in character, sometimes, with truly incredible effects. This is something that Phoenix reportedly did multiple times on the set of Joker.

If you haven't seen it yet, this is the trailer for Joker: 

In an interview with Slash Film, cinematographer Lawrence Sher explained that one of the movie's creepiest scenes was actually improvised by Phoenix.

This is when Arthur removes all of the food from his refrigerator, then crawls inside to - quite literally - shut himself off from the world. It's a disturbing insight into the Joker's increasingly fragile mental state.

Credit: 1704

Sher said: "While some scenes were very planned out, like when he's in the phonebooth or walking up the stairs, others had no plan at all.

"When he climbed in the refrigerator, we had no idea he was going to do that. We set up two camera positions, and Joaquin just thought about what he would do if he was a massive insomniac. Again, we lit it so he could go anywhere, and the first and only time he did it, we were mesmerized.

"I remember thinking, 'What is he doing? Did he just crawl in the fridge?' It was as fun and weird for us to watch it, too."

Check out this incredible Joker outtake that left Phoenix feeling "embarrassed": 

However, more than one memorable scene from the movie was completely improvised. Sher revealed that Pheonix "created that whole dance."

The cinematographer explained: "Joaquin created that whole dance and, after the success of that scene, we started creating more moments like that.

"Like when he's playing with the gun and fires it into the wall. All we knew was that he'd fire the gun into the wall at some point, but we never planned when or knew that he’d stand and have that conversation with himself and begin dancing.

"We just had two cameras in there and let it happen, which became a major part of how we did a lot of things."

Credit: 3418

Clearly, Pheonix has put his own stamp on one of DC's most iconic characters - and people are already calling for an Oscar nomination.

This will no doubt come as a blow to Jared Leto, who, after his brief portrayal of the Joker in Suicide Squad, assumed that he would be the first choice for the role in any future feature films.