Vovan and Lexus, a Russian duo notorious for their pranks of politicians and celebrities, have punked Joaquin Phoenix – posing as Greta Thunberg and her father.
Vovan said that Greta’s role was played by a woman they are familiar with, but won’t reveal her name. In an audio of the call published on Wednesday, Lexus can be heard impersonating Svante Thunberg.
Seconds into the call, Joaquin Phoenix brought in his longtime partner and fiancé Rooney Mara.
“I’m a big fan of your work and your last movie,” the fake Greta says.
Lexus chimes in: “Greta has no rights [sic] to go to the movie, but we broke the rules and watched it”, to chuckles from Joaquin and Rooney.
An unsuspecting Joaquin goes on to recall how they heard a speech by Greta: “[We] were moved by what you said and just your commitment to this work.”
‘Greta’ then unveils her special offer to the actor: an awareness-raising campaign called Stars Save the Earth.
Both Joaquin and his fiancé say they’d be happy to help. As Rooney expands on how important animal rights protection is to them, Greta interjects by asking if she could get a “small part” in a prospective Joker sequel.
Joaquin breaks into laughter, before admitting that they haven’t written one yet and no decision has been made on a sequel, and that he would like to have Rooney play there too. He promises though to “keep [Greta] in mind” if another Joker movie comes up.
‘Greta’ then suggests she could star as the violent supervillain Harley Queen because she bears some similarities to the character: “Sometimes I want to take a basketball [sic] bat and smash all the politicians that think they are very smart.”
Joaquin and Rooney both laugh as he promises to talk to the writer and the director about it.
Lexus/Svante recounts a fictitious story about how he met with Jared Leto, who played the Joker in the 2016 film Suicide Squad, and how Leto went out of his way trying to prove that he was a better Joker than Phoenix and was eventually rushed to hospital by ambulance.
The Hollywood couple appears confused, and Joaquin says he feels sorry for the ‘Thunbergs’.
‘Greta’ then begs Joaquin (“just a few more seconds please”) to laugh as the Joker. He says he has devoted a lot of time working into it and cannot just do it on the spot, but eventually concedes.
‘Svante’, who is also an actor in real life, also does the Joker laughter (it isn’t even close though).
‘Greta’ calls her ‘father’ a bad actor and they start an argument. “I don’t have to do it again”, Lexus shouts. “The neighbours will call the police again.”
It culminates in shots being fired, and after a few seconds’ pause Joaquin realises: “Oh my God we were being punked. We are totally getting punked. It’s brilliant. What you guys did was brilliant.”
Vovan and Lexus, who have recently tricked a US governor into thinking that Russia is about to annex Alaska, seem to have embraced Greta Thunberg’s planet-saving legacy.
Earlier this month, they published an audio of their conversation with Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who promised the Swedish activist to do everything to save Chunga-Changa (a fictitious island from a popular Soviet cartoon).
