Joaquin Phoenix praises Heath Ledger for his SAG Award during speech

"I'm standing here on the shoulders of my favourite actor, Heath Ledger."

With the awards season nearing its conclusion, it's all but a certainty that Joaquin Phoenix is on his way to his first Oscar for his performance in 'Joker'.

If Phoenix wins, it'll be the second time in Oscar history that an actor has won an Oscar for playing the same fictional character. The first time it happened was when Marlon Brando won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Vito Corleone in 'The Godfather', and then Robert DeNiro won a Best Supporting Actor for playing a young Vito Corleone in 'The Godfather, Part II'.

In his speech at last night's SAG Awards, Joaquin Phoenix spent almost all of his speech talking about the other nominees. He began by talking about his early career as a child actor, and how he was often paired up against and eventually lost roles to one actor - Leonardo DiCaprio. For Christian Bale, Phoenix implored him to "turn in a bad performance... just suck once, it'd be great" before moving on to Adam Driver.

"I'm just so moved, and you were devastating in this film, and you should be here," Phoenix said from the dais, before calling out to Taron Egerton for his performance in 'Rocketman'. The culmination of his speech, however, came when he talked about how he was "standing on the shoulders of my favourite actor, Heath Ledger." Heath Ledger, of course, played Joker in Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight', in what would end up being one of his final roles and the one that won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Here's the speech in full.