Joaquin Phoenix responds to fears of ‘Joker’ violence

Actor Joaquin Phoenix says it’s a good thing that people are being forced to confront evil in “Joker” — a film that’s raised fears of a mass shooting threat at its screenings.

“I didn’t imagine that it would be smooth sailing,” Phoenix, 44, told Vanity Fair magazine of the response to the film that will see NYPD officers converging on some screenings when it opens this week.

“It’s a difficult film. In some ways, it’s good that people are having a strong reaction to it,” the star insisted in the interview published online Tuesday, almost two weeks after the Army warned of fears “Joker” might incite incels into mass shootings.

The star told Vanity Fair that he felt driven to portray Joker in a way “where you sympathize or empathize with this villain.”

“It’s so easy for us to — we want the simple answers, we want to vilify people. It allows us to feel good if we can identify that as evil,” he said.

“But that’s not healthy because we’re not really examining our inherent racism that most white people have, certainly. Or whatever it may be. Whatever issues you may have,” he said.

“It’s too easy for us and I felt like, yeah, we should explore this villain. This malevolent person.

“There’s no real communication, and to me that’s the value of this. I think that we are capable as an audience to see both of those things simultaneously and experience them and value them.”

Director Todd Phillips, meanwhile, insisted that it was not their movie’s fault that the world was so troubled.

“We’re making a movie about a fictional character in a fictional world, ultimately, and your hope is that people take it for what it is,” he told the magazine.

“You can’t blame movies for a world that is so f–ked up that anything can trigger it.

“That’s kind of what the movie is about. It’s not a call to action. If anything it’s a call to self-reflection to society.”