Willem Dafoe has expressed his interest in playing a “Joker imposter” alongside Joaquin Phoenix.

• READ MORE: ‘Joker’ review: a melancholic psychodrama punctuated by splashes of shocking violence

The actor, who is currently reprising his role as the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: No Way Home, shared his idea for a new take on a supervillain character.

“There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter,” Dafoe told British GQ.

“So it would be possible to have not duelling Jokers but someone that says to be the Joker that isn’t the Joker. And that kind of opens up the possibility of an interesting story, particularly if you had Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, and then you had someone who was either imitating or riffing off what he did.”

He added: “I fantasised about that. But other than that I am not talking to anybody [about it], you’re the first one.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Dafoe joked about playing villains, saying: “I don’t know what that is. I’ll play dumb. You play characters. I could say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s fun to play villains ’cause you can do things that you can’t do in life, or it’s fun to play with your dark side.’ But I don’t know. I’m not thinking about those things.”

Joaquin Phoenix played Arthur Fleck/The Joker in Todd Phillips’ 2019 psychological thriller, acting as a prequel story for the infamous DC villain.

In a five-star review of Joker, NME wrote: “Yup, instant classic. Bold words. Bold proclamation. It is said without fear of plausible recrimination. Todd Phillips’ isn’t clowning around. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff. This is outstanding.”