alec baldwin
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SPOILER ALERT: This article may contain information that could be considered SPOILERS for the movie ‘Joker’ so proceed with caution.

The star-studded cast of Todd Phillips‘Joker’ just got a little more starry, as Alec Baldwin joins in the role of  Thomas Wayne, the Gotham City doctor and philanthropist whose son Bruce will one day grow up to be Batman.  And according to rumor, he may have sired at least one other offspring, although not with his wife Martha.  The role of Thomas Wayne was last portrayed by ‘The Walking Dead”s Jeffrey Dean Morgan in flashbacks in ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’, with an eye on him possibly reprising the role as the alternate timeline Batman in ‘Flashpoint’.  But it appears that Warner Brothers has opted not to adapt the ‘Flashpoint’ comic book story, so those plans may have been scrapped.

Baldwin joins Joaquin Phoenix, who is playing the lead character, a possible aspiring stand-up comedian named Arthur Fleck, who will spiral into Gotham’s underworld and will emerge as the chalk white supervillain The Joker.  Frances Conroy is reportedly going to play Arthur’s mother Penny, but that has yet to be confirmed.  Rumor has it that Penny was once employed by Thomas Wayne and may have fallen in love with him.  It’s possible that Thomas impregnated her and that Arthur is their love child, making him and Bruce half-brothers.  But that’s just a rumor at this point.

That cast also includes: Robert DeNiro who is reportedly playing Murray Franklin, a talk show host that plays an important role in Arthur’s life; Zazie Beetz as single mother Sophie Dumond, a woman that Arthur falls in love with; Josh Pais as Hoyt Vaughn, a hotel manager; and comedian and ‘GLOW’ star Marc Maron in an undisclosed role.  Though Maron’s character’s name hasn’t been revealed, he did state that his character shares scenes with DeNiro’s.

Baldwin needs no introduction, but he can currently be seen on the big screen in Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKkKlansman’ and as Alan Hunley in ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’, a role he originated in 2015’s ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’.  He can also be seen frequently lampooning Donald Trump on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and he has a recurring role on ‘Will & Grace’.

Phillips’ ‘Joker’ is not connected to the unfurling DC film universe, in which Jared Leto appears as The Joker.

‘Joker’ is scheduled to hit theaters on October 4th, 2019.