Lewis Pullman Would ‘Love’ to Replace Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Haynes’ Shelved Queer Romance

Pullman's "Top Gun: Maverick" co-star Danny Ramirez was set to act alongside Phoenix before the "Joker" Oscar winner abruptly exited the project.

Lewis Pullman is ready to step in where Joaquin Phoenix pulled out.

The “Thunderbolts” star told Variety that he would be more than happy to replace “Joker” actor Phoenix in the now-shelved Todd Haynes queer-romance movie. Phoenix, who brought the idea to Haynes and developed the (probably) NC-17-rated feature with screenwriter Jon Raymond, dropped out of the film five days before production began. IndieWire was the first to report the news.

Phoenix and Danny Ramirez were going to play two men in the 1930s who begin a romantic relationship and leave Los Angeles for Mexico.

Pullman, who co-starred with Ramirez in “Top Gun: Maverick,” wants to join the untitled Haynes film and resurrect its production.

“I would love to get that call,” Pullman said of stepping into the role. “It’s a brilliant idea. I’m here. I’m here. I’m ready.”

Ramirez and Pullman still collaborate even years after “Top Gun: Maverick.” According to Pullman, Ramirez helped him get into character for his “Salem’s Lot” role.

“He taught me this great thing, a way to break down the arc of a character with all these note cards,” Pullman said of Ramirez’s acting tips. “So I did it on this because I wanted to really track basically how Ben’s journey into believing in something crazy like vampires. I was like, ‘OK, I really want of do this right,’ where he’s like, ‘There’s no way vampires are actually [real]’ and then it’s like he sees this, he hears this, he witnesses that and compiling that arc. I tried to map it out with some sort of architecture, and so I hope that the extreme nature of my reactions has some sort of an elegant bell curve going on.”

As for reuniting with Ramirez for a possible third “Top Gun,” Pullman said, “All I know is the Glen Powell narrative, that apparently he’s claiming there is a script. And this has been said since day one, is I think as long as it’s earned and as long as Tom feels like it continues the story of Maverick in a way that part of the story that needs to be told, then I think it could happen.”