Is Arthur Fleck, Harley Quinn's last interaction imagined or real? Find out

Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips has revealed if the last interaction between Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) and Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga) was real.

In the movie, Quinn spends her time with Arthur trying to make him turn into the Joker completely. So, in the end when he confesses to the murder he’s on trial for, and revokes the Joker persona even as a split personality, she gets disappointed and leaves him.

“The sad thing is, he’s Arthur, and nobody cares about Arthur,” Phillips told Entertainment Weekly. “[She’s] realizing, ‘I’m on a whole other trip, man. You can’t be what I wanted you to be.'”

Phillips went on to clarify that the last encounter between Arthur and Lee is “actually, really happening.” In doing so he refuted fan theories that Arthur had imagined the encounter like he imagined a romance with his neighbor Sophie (Zazie Beetz) in Joker.

Phillips also explained Arthur’s Joker persona, saying, “When those guards kill that kid in the [hospital] he realizes that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck; he’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore — he wants to be who he is.”

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga starring Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in cinemas.