Barry Keoghan as Joker: Matt Reeves' Arkham Inmate and His Return in The Batman Part II

At the very end of Matt Reeves' film, there's a shot that many viewers missed. Paul Dano has just been neutralized, the city is flooded, and the editing lingers on an asylum corridor. A silhouette speaks from the neighboring cell. We can make out a mouth, a laugh, a fragment of scarred skin, but never the whole face. This character has no name in the credits — he is credited as an anonymous inmate — and yet, four years later, he occupies a disproportionate place in fan conversations.

This tiny appearance is by Barry Keoghan. And now that The Batman – Part II officially has a release date, it becomes relevant again: the Irish actor is expected to return. This article is not speculation on the plot of the next film. It is an examination of what was actually filmed, shown, and then cut — and what this material says about a version of the Clown Prince of Crime that the general public has, in practice, almost never seen.

Two minutes on screen, six years of waiting

The calculation is almost absurd. In a nearly three-hour film, Keoghan's presence is counted in seconds. No action lines, no confrontations, no wide shot of his face. A verbal exchange, a hand against a pane of glass, a rising laugh. That's all.

This economy is not a production accident; it's a method. Reeves built his Gotham on restraint: a second-year Batman, awkward, who investigates more than he fights; a city filmed like a seventies crime thriller; villains reduced to credible criminal figures. Introducing the Joker in full light would have turned this setup into a spectacle. So the director did the opposite of what the industry has been doing for twenty years: he placed his most recognizable asset off-screen.

The result is a rare object — a character whose notoriety rests entirely on what we haven't been shown. To put this approach in perspective with previous ones, our comparison between The Batman and Christopher Nolan's trilogy details this change in regime.

The Arkham scene: what the film actually shows

Let's revisit the shot itself, without rewriting it from memory. The Riddler has failed. His plan worked beyond his calculations, but he gains no glory from it: he is imprisoned, humiliated, and Gotham has not crowned him. He cries. From the adjacent cell, a voice initiates a conversation—at first sympathetic, then frankly amused.

The staging refuses a full reverse shot. The camera remains low, off-center; we catch a portion of a jaw, a scar, a set of teeth. The laugh does the rest of the work. What the sequence establishes is not a villain, but a promise: in this asylum, there is someone whose logic surpasses that of the killer Batman has just arrested.

The place matters as much as the man. The asylum is, in this continuity, a failing institution in a failing city — a theme we explore in our dossier on Arkham Asylum, Gotham's most terrifying psychiatric hospital. And the cellmate, Reeves' version of the Riddler, is not chosen at random: the two men share the same conviction, that they have understood the city better than it understands itself. Our overview of Gotham's mythical enemies places these two figures within the complete gallery.

This detail of narrative architecture is more important than it appears. In this Gotham, institutions no longer protect anyone: the police are corrupt, justice is bought, the asylum serves as a warehouse. Our article on the GCPD between corruption and heroism describes the same mechanism on the police side. Placing the Joker's birth in this setting is tantamount to saying that he is not an anomaly that appeared out of nowhere, but a logical product of the system. This is exactly the opposite of the character's usual treatment, where madness falls from the sky in the form of a chemical accident.

The deleted scene with Robert Pattinson: the true portrait

Most of the material is not in the theatrical release, but in a scene cut during editing and later released by the studio. It lasts a few minutes and is, to date, the only document where this character truly functions.

The premise: Batman goes to Arkham to profile the killer he's hunting. He consults the inmate as one would consult a specialist. The sequence overtly borrows its grammar from the investigative thriller — an investigator facing a criminal mind he despises but needs. And the power dynamic shifts in a few lines: it's no longer Batman interrogating, but the prisoner reading his visitor.

Two things emerge. First, a disturbing intimacy: these two already know each other, the dialogue implies it without ever explicitly stating it. Second, an unexpected acting register — Keoghan doesn't play exuberance; he plays proximity. His threat isn't theatrical; it's relational. This is a Joker who doesn't want to destroy Gotham, but to occupy a man's mind.

The cinematic lineage is acknowledged and deserves to be named: it's the profiler scene where the monster in the cell is consulted, a matrix inherited from 1990s investigative thrillers. This isn't a gratuitous nod. It's a statement of intent from a director who treats his Batman as a detective before treating him as a vigilante, and who places his Joker on the side of criminal intelligence rather than explosiveness.

The mere fact that this sequence was filmed, then kept and released afterwards, speaks volumes. You don't dedicate several minutes of set time, prosthetic makeup, and actor direction to a silhouette you don't intend to do anything with. This scene was an investment, and it was removed for pacing reasons — not abandonment.

Why this face is never shown in its entirety

The refusal to fully reveal the character rests on a simple gamble: once seen, a face ceases to be unsettling. Reeves maintained this off-screen presence even in promotional materials, and the makeup — extensive prosthetic work, executed by the film's special effects teams — was only detailed afterwards.

However, it's important to be precise on this point: what the film establishes is a disfigurement; what interviews have added is a medical rather than chemical explanation. In other words, this version is not born from a vat of acid. It is born from a condition, and from a city that never knew what to do with bodies it deemed monstrous. This nuance is crucial for what follows.

A Joker without an acid bath: breaking with all tradition

Since 1951, the chemical origin has been the character's foundation: a criminal falls into a vat, emerges bleached, and his madness becomes a physical consequence. All mythology has been built on this, even modern narratives that question the reliability of this memory.

By abandoning this origin, Reeves shifts the question. His Joker is no longer the product of an industrial accident; he is the product of social rejection — exactly as his Bruce Wayne is no longer a playboy but a recluse. The two characters become symmetrical: two men damaged by the same city, one wearing a mask to hide and the other wearing his face as a provocation.

This reinterpretation does not negate previous ones; it adds to them. The classic portrayal of the character remains available in our complete history of the Joker, and the great comic book stories that shaped him — from The Killing Joke to Three Jokers — remain the best entry point to understand what Reeves chooses to keep and what he discards.

The return in Part II: what is established, what is not

Here, it is important to clearly separate facts from rumors, because the subject generates many. What is established: the film will be released on February 18, 2028, in the United States, after a postponement announced on July 15, 2026, which moved it from October 1, 2027. Filming began on June 12, 2026. The action takes place in winter, in direct continuation of the flood that concludes the first film.

Regarding Keoghan, the specialized press agrees on a return, with a constant and important caveat: the character would remain on the periphery of the narrative, and not as the main antagonist. This is consistent with Reeves' logic, who has been building his Joker as a deferred threat since the first film. But as long as the studio does not release a synopsis, this remains a convergence of sources, not official confirmation — and we present it as such.

The rest of the cast is better documented: Robert Pattinson, Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell return, joined by Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, Charles Dance, Brian Tyree Henry, and Sebastian Koch. The details of these arrivals and the arc they outline are covered in our article on Sebastian Stan and the character of Harvey Dent, and the general map of this continuity in Matt Reeves' universe explained. If you're preparing for the film, our review guide before Part II indicates what to rewatch and in what order, including The Penguin series.

Keoghan versus Nicholson, Ledger, Leto, and Phoenix

Comparing the performers of the role is a tricky exercise because they aren't playing the same thing. Jack Nicholson, in 1989, embodies a gangster turned artist, in a film that embraces the operatic. Heath Ledger, in 2008, invents an agent of chaos with no fixed past, and shifts the character towards terrorism. Jared Leto attempts a contemporary criminal version in a film that doesn't give him space. Joaquin Phoenix completely abandons Batman to tell a social trajectory.

Keoghan, meanwhile, has none of these spaces. He inherits two minutes and a deleted scene. His proposal therefore lies entirely in the tone of voice and physicality — a young, almost gentle Joker, whose unease comes from familiarity rather than excess. This is the most intimate version in the lineage, and by far the least documented.

There's a lesson in filmmaking there. The interpretations that have left a lasting mark on the character are those that accepted not to explain everything: Ledger tells the origin of his scars three times and probably lies each time. Reeves pushes this principle to its limit by not even showing the face. The risk is real — one can leave the film without understanding who this inmate was — but the benefit is measurable today: four years later, the character remains a topic of conversation even though he has provided no iconic images.

Each of these incarnations has its own file: Jack Nicholson in 1989, Heath Ledger in 2008, Joaquin Phoenix in 2019 and its sequel Folie à Deux. Placing Keoghan in this series means understanding that he doesn't occupy the same role: he is not the antagonist of a film, he is the door left open at the end of another. To place each actor in the overall context, our all Batman film casts page lists the complete casts, and the chronology of all Batman films positions each era relative to the others.

Collecting or embodying an almost invisible version

This is the practical paradox of this Joker: he is highly anticipated and almost impossible to represent faithfully, since no complete official image exists. Two strategies are therefore available to anyone who wants to turn him into an object or costume.

The first consists of playing with off-screen elements: favoring prison imagery, worn textures, and the absence of obvious makeup. This is the most faithful to the spirit of the scene, and the most difficult to achieve. The second consists of embracing another, better-documented incarnation, and treating it correctly. Our version guides exist precisely for this: the Joker costume guide by cinematic incarnation compares the silhouettes film by film, the figurine guide by incarnation does the same for display cases, and the makeup tutorial by version details the choices made in each film.

To explore the complete ranges, the Joker costumes and disguises, Joker figurines, Batman masks and Batman costumes sections cover most needs, from occasional cosplay to display pieces. The Batman gifts selection remains the simplest entry point for giving a gift without making a mistake about the universe.

What to remember before February 2028

Barry Keoghan's Joker is, to date, the most discussed character in the Reeves continuity despite being the least shown. Two minutes in the film, a scene cut from the edit, no wide shots: it's little, and that's precisely what has built the anticipation.

What can be affirmed without extrapolation is in a few lines. The character exists, he is imprisoned in Arkham, he already knows Batman, his disfigurement has nothing to do with acid, and his actor is expected for the sequel — likely in a peripheral role. The film arrives on February 18, 2028. Everything else, today, is rumor, and we prefer to state that rather than speculate.

One open question remains, and it's fascinating: what does a director do with a character who has become cult without having shown anything? To fully reveal him is to risk disappointing an expectation that one has oneself created. To keep him off-screen for another film is to risk frustration. The chosen solution — a peripheral presence, if the available information is confirmed — looks like a third way: maintaining the threat without expending it, and saving the confrontation for a possible third installment.

It's also, incidentally, good news for the consistency of the saga. A Joker who takes center stage in Part II would mechanically overshadow the arcs of Harvey Dent and Penguin, patiently established since 2022 and extended by the series. By keeping him in the background, Reeves protects the architecture he has spent four years building.

Until then, the best way to approach this sequel is to revisit the first film knowing what to look for — and to keep in mind that, in Matt Reeves' Gotham, what remains off-screen often weighs more heavily than what is on it.