Joaquin Phoenix on Sunday was named Best Actor when awarded his first Oscar win for his role as failed stand-up comic turned clown-faced madman Arthur Fleck in Joker. After winning the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award and the BAFTA, Phoenix was named the odds-on favorite to win the prize over nominees Adam Driver (Marriage Story), Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory), Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes), and Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood). The four-time Oscar nominee was first nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for 2000’s Gladiator, where he played Commodus, and was later nominated for Best Actor for roles as Johnny Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line and Freddie Quell in 2012’s The Master.

Phoenix previously admitted he had “a lot of fear” over taking the Joker role, his first collaboration with writer-director Todd Phillips. The filmmaker confessed both he and Phoenix shared a “certain fear” when stepping into the comic book movie genre for the first time.

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