The enigmatic world of Gotham City is set to be plunged into chaos once more as Joaquin Phoenix reprises his iconic role as the Joker in the highly anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux.
The first film, released in 2019, was a critical and commercial success, earning Phoenix a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Actor. It offered a gritty, psychological exploration of the Joker's origins, delving into the complexities of mental illness and societal neglect.
In Folie à Deux, Phoenix dives even deeper into the mind of the Joker, this time with the addition of a new, exciting character: the iconic Harley Quinn or, in this film, “Lee” played by Academy Award and multi Grammy Award-winning superstar Lady Gaga.
The film explores the toxic and codependent relationship between the Joker and Lee, offering a unique and disturbing perspective on their shared madness, a.k.a. their “folie à deux.” Gaga's involvement in the project has generated significant buzz, as her powerful performances in films like A Star is Born – in which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress – and House of Gucci have cemented her status as a versatile and captivating actress.
Phoenix's dedication to the role of the Joker is well-known. He underwent a dramatic physical transformation for the first film, losing a significant amount of weight and adopting a gaunt appearance. His portrayal of the character was both haunting and compelling, capturing the essence of a man driven to the brink of insanity. For Folie à Deux, Phoenix has undergone yet another intense transformation, further immersing himself in the complex psyche of the Joker.
Complex sat down with Phoenix and Lady Gaga to discuss the challenges of portraying such intense roles and the film’s exploration of a shared psychosis and dual madness. The two also discussed the unconventional decision to sing live on set and shared insights into their creative processes, including their collaborative approach to rewriting scenes day-of, and their unique methods for embodying their characters’ emotional states.
(This interview has been edited in length for clarity.)
Arthur Fleck's journey in the first Joker was a psychological unraveling. How did you approach Arthur's transformation in Folie à Deux, and what new layers of his psyche did you discover this time?
Joaquin Phoenix: Whoa! How did you come up with that question? Very cool! That’s a very cool style.
Todd (Phillips) and I were talking halfway through shooting the last film. I started talking about the possibilities for this character, where it could go and, of course, there’s a part of me that's, like, when you have a character who just wants one person to hear them and to listen to them, he doesn't get that, so then he is like – I want a small room to hear. I want to go into this comedy room, and I want them to hear me and I want them to like me.
And then it keeps growing and growing along with, I don't know, maybe because in some ways there is some part of him that, from years of not being hurt or understood, suddenly has this outsized need to be heard, and it grows into something more. So he achieves this, kind of, mass adoration by the end, but he had to create, or be a part of this character, and commit these acts in order to get that kind of adoration.
So what happens when that person comes down from that? It's, like, what is the hangover after that? And you find them sitting alone in a mental hospital. Well, what is that like? That just seemed like it was the right ground to explore, and I just felt like it might be a different way to approach a sequel.
The title ‘Folie à Deux’ refers to a shared psychosis. How did the concept of dual madness influence your portrayal of Arthur individually, as well as with Lee Quinzel, played by Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta)?
JP: Having Stefani was amazing and I think that's something else that Todd and I definitely thought of early on while we were still making the first film, was if we ever exploit this character again, we would want to bring in the female counterpart to him just to see how that could be combustible.
He finally achieves the thing that he wanted from the first film. He finally gets it, which is recognition and love. In his mind, in his experience of what he's capable of.
The thing that happens when people have that experience, you suddenly want things to quiet down. So he gets to this place where he's like – Oh, good, this is something that I've always wanted – and things could just be comical. And I think, in some ways, she has the opposite reaction. It fires her up in a way and she wants the Joker that she saw. She wants this image.
Image via Warner Bros.
With the film incorporating musical elements, how did music play a role in shaping your character and his internal emotional world?
We first got songs, like “For Once in My Life” sung by Frank Sinatra. I’m listening to them and I’m like – these are very nice, but Frank is Frank. He's a very confident person. Arthur is not Frank. This is not the reference. At some point I was like – this does not make sense. This should not be smooth at all. In fact, it's the opposite. It should be as deconstructed as possible because what you have is somebody who's not a singer, but somebody who's heard these songs from his mother's radio growing up, they're just in his head. If I f**k up some lyrics, that's okay. If the phrasing is off, if the melody's bad, if there's bad notes, all of those things feel like that's the authentic way for this person to express themselves. And that's a weird notion to introduce for a movie with so many musical elements that's a big movie.
I was saying it has to be as emotional and authentic as possible, and the sound almost comes second, and Stefani was the one who said we should record live and, at first, I was really opposed to that idea. I said I can't. Like, that's what you do, but I'm just not good enough to do that.
And then I realized, well, that's really the strength of it, he's not good enough. I'm just kind of coming in thinking of it as though we're performing it as a musical, in that genre, and it's not.
So that was nerve wracking, but then we took a step further and I was like, okay, well not only are we gonna record the vocals live, but we're not gonna be recording to a fixed sound like a backing track.
I think, hopefully, it captured some of the mental state that the characters are in.
Image via Warner Bros.
What’s really interesting is how you had to sing not as “Lady Gaga,” but as Lee—which meant unlearning technique. What was the challenge in, sort of, moving backward?
Lady Gaga: You know, it was kind of a really beautiful process, but it was definitely a challenge.
I definitely feel very used to certain things that I do with my throat and my stomach, when I’m breathing when I sing, in a way that I connect to my truth that feels very natural for me, and I had to create a completely alternate voice for Lee. A voice that would make sense for this person and, you know, in a way,
Not the whole movie, because in the fantasy moments it’s also about – what is Arthur dreaming of? So there are moments where she is great, and then there are other times when she is dealing with something inside. She’s not a singer, you know? It’s just the way that we would use the voice to soothe ourselves, or confess something or have a private moment.
You, Joaquin and Todd would often tear up the script and do a whole rewrite on the day of filming. How did that feel?
LG: He’s saying that because that’s what he does!
I would drive to the studio everyday at four o’clock in the morning, and I would be in his trailer around five, and we would just, like, throw it away. Very often.
In the pursuit of what needed to happen at that moment and, also, trying to find something honest and truthful and working in that completely organic way, I think it really helped us to move the story forward in a way that was very natural for these two characters, but also really imaginative, because we could kind of build off all the various things.
It wasn’t just about the script. It was also the music, the makeup, the lighting.
JP: It's a common practice that when you're working through a scene, suddenly when you arrive on set it looks different than you imagined, or something that the other actor is doing, and you just start imagining new possibilities. But it's really about working closely with Scott (Silver) and Todd, who wrote the screenplay, and sometimes you go down a road and say – well what if we don't say this dialogue, only to come back and later do the scene as written. And sometimes that just imbues it with a different quality.
And Stefani, you know, I don't know what her experience is. I know that she maybe studied acting when she was younger, I know that she's made a couple of films, and I don't know what those processes were like, but it can be uncomfortable at times.
Image via Warner Bros.
In the past, you’ve spoken about the challenge in finding the emotion and intensity you need for a particular scene when you’re on set in a small space with tons of people around you. Where did you end up drawing the emotion from, or what did you find was most helpful?
JP: There’s a scene in the courtroom, it's not an intense scene, but it's actually the opposite. There’s something really funny about it. I'm representing myself, and being a southern lawyer, but what Leigh (Gill), the actor who plays Gary, was doing when he got on the stand really affected me, and I hadn't considered how the events of the first film might have affected him. It might have affected him psychologically.
And here Leigh is, up on the stand, recounting those events and he seems really traumatized by it (I'm laughing). He's just really traumatized by it and I was shocked, and I was like – of course. I had such a profound effect on his on his life, and it must have been f***ing terrifying and horrible. So I felt that, and then I just applied it to the scene and you see that Arthur, even though he's acting like he's Joker, we see Arthur underneath that moment be affected by somebody who is one of the few people that was kind to him in the first film. So sometimes those things present themselves. Part of it is like just being open and receptive when they happen.
Image via Warner Bros.
Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters October 4th.