‘They exist on a different level’: The transformation of Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix

The character of the Joker stands tall in the canon of superhero mythology, even though he is draped in darkness, destructive ill will and chaos. He is the antithesis of everything good and honourable, and yet, when 2019’s Joker was released, he joined the pantheon of $US1 billion-plus box-office earners.

In hindsight, the film’s success seems obvious: a stunning performance from Joaquin Phoenix, crisp and inventive storytelling from director Todd Phillips, and a lean into an almost 85-year-old literary legacy that dates back to his first encounter with Batman, in 1940.

But that relationship, which has been reimagined for the small and silver screens many times in the decades since, begs one question in the context of a movie franchise where Joker is number one on the call sheet and there is no sign of Gotham City billionaire Bruce Wayne: who exactly is the Joker if he does not have his Batman?

Joaquin Phoenix as Joker.Credit: Warner Bros

“One thing I playfully point out to people is, if you had your hands on the screenplay for Joker, it says ‘Joker, an origin story’, not the origin story,” says Phillips, as we sit down to discuss Joker: Folie à Deux, the highly anticipated follow-up. “And it’s really important to us that this is our version of it.

“So it wasn’t so much that we were worried, or that we sat and pined over the idea of what is Joker without a Batman; it was really just an attempt to do a backstory on this really tragic person, but through a really realistic lens. What you know about Joker is: he has white skin, we’re going to tell you why his skin is white. And it wasn’t [because] he fell into a vat of acid because that doesn’t feel real in this world.”

In the new film Joker does share the screen with the leading lady given to him by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for Batman: The Animated Series in 1992, and retrofitted into the comic-book history of the character: Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn, here played by Lady Gaga.

Picking up the story two years after the events of the original film, Joker – alias Arthur Fleck – is now a patient at Arkham State Hospital, where he meets and falls in love with fellow inmate Harleen Quinzel. Together, they turn musical therapy into a true folie à deux.

The title, which comes from a French phrase meaning madness for two, did not land in a lightbulb moment, nor was it on the drawing board from the beginning of plans to develop a Joker sequel.

And yet, like many such titles – The Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back, even Desperate Housewives on television – it dazzles because of its simplicity, and the manner in which it unfurls the entirety of the story.

Lady Gaga, director Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix in Venice ahead of Joker: Folie à Deux’s premiere at the film festival. Credit: Getty Images

“It wasn’t like we came up with the title and then went, ‘Ooh, that’s it’. [Co-writer] Scott Silver and I were writing for a year before we stumbled on that term and, quite frankly, we went, ‘God, this is so perfect, how could we not have it?’ And so it became the thing,” Phillips says.

“Obviously it’s an actual psychiatric term, madness for two – it’s when one plus one equals three, in terms of crazy. But it doesn’t necessarily [have to mean that] and when you see the movie I think you’ll understand. It’s not necessarily, ‘oh, Joaquin plus Gaga’, because the first movie could have been called Folie à Deux with the idea that it’s Joker and Arthur.”

It also taps one of the fundamental tenets of comic-book superhero storytelling: the idea of the dual identity. That is, Superman and his everyday alias Clark Kent, Batman and billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne, and Princess Diana of Themyscira, better known as Wonder Woman.

Even in the most benign interpretation of that combination – Superman and Clark Kent – there is still a sort of fundamental madness. “A push and pull between the two,” Phillips says.

And yet, in the case of the Joker, the madness is properly monstrous. This is, after all, a murderous character with lurid face paint who would torture and torment the residents of Gotham City for decades.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie à Deux.Credit:

According to filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, monsters are an expression of the neglected and the forgotten, characters who were vilified by society and had their otherness created around them. In a sense, the del Toro monster is “the good guy”. Phillips’ perspective differs in one significant way: he does not see Joker as a monster at all.

“He’s simply not a monster,” Phillips says. “I view Arthur Fleck as somebody who is the product of a broken system and, much like Guillermo would say, he was the product of growing up with a lack of love, growing up in a society that doesn’t value empathy, and in some ways you get the villain you deserve, so to speak.

“But there is such beauty to Joaquin in the way he plays Joker and such a gracefulness to Joaquin and the way he plays Joker that I always used to say that the first film was about a guy who you love until you can’t love him any more. Clearly, towards the end of the first movie, people started turning on him. But the truth was, I loved him the whole time – and maybe that’s my flaw, but I was rooting for him the whole time. I never stopped loving him.”

Not difficult to imagine, either, why Lady Gaga’s Harleen Quinzel loves Joker. Indeed, this is a truly chemical screen pairing, in the hands of two actors of genuine skill. For Gaga, part of what makes her so extraordinary is she seems almost completely unaware of it. The space within those competing energies is where the magic happens.

Her stagecraft as a musician speaks for itself. But her performances as Ally Maine in A Star Is Born, Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci and the Countess in American Horror Story: Hotel are equally extraordinary.

Lady Gaga as Lee Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn, in Joker: Folie à Deux.Credit:

“What’s interesting is that when you say it, I am thinking that also applies to Joaquin,” Phillips says. “If Joaquin walks by playback [when a scene is replayed on a monitor on set to ensure it has complete coverage] by mistake, he goes, ‘Oh my god, turn that off, I’m so f---ing bad’. And he’s not kidding, he really doesn’t see what we all see.

“The other thing about these women – Gaga, Beyoncé, Barbra Streisand, the ones that are bigger than life – is that it’s so amazing to us when we see them be vulnerable and just be regular because they exist on a different level than even the movie stars that we all worship and look at. It’s the same as LeBron James. He’s a god. It’s not on a normal level.”

The first Joker film made a billion dollars at the box office, an event you might think gives a writer-director enormous freedom. After all, Phillips has proved he can earn the studio the big bickies. At the same time, nothing draws the scrutiny of studio executives and accountants more than a movie with an enormous price tag on its tail.

“It’s easier, of course, in the convincing of the movie studio [that the film is worth making],” Phillips says. “It’s way harder in terms of the expectations of the audience. Half the reason the first movie worked, quite frankly, is because it felt like a discovery from the audience that went to see it. It felt it totally was not what they expected it to be. It’s a lot easier to be the insurgent than the incumbent, right?

“And now we are the incumbent, and that is a different level of pressure. But at the same time, it’s why we all do this. If it’s not to take some chances and swing for the fences, what the f--- are we really doing? And that was really the discussion Joaquin and I had, and this movie might feel like such a departure from the first movie in some ways.

“We had a lot of goodwill. But you know what I’ve discovered? I’ve been doing this now 30 years [and it] is that goodwill is perishable and if you don’t use it, it’s not like it’ll be there three years from now. So, let’s go use it and let’s do something bold, and let’s try and really blow people’s minds. And that’s what we tried.”

Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman (1989), directed by Tim Burton. Credit:

THE MANY FACES OF THE JOKER ...

Batman (1966-1968) and Batman: The Movie (1966)
Played by Cesar Romero, this iteration of Joker – or “the Joker”, as he was often called – lacked the homicidal tendencies of his comic-book counterpart, and was instead a criminal mastermind known for his garish face make-up, hysterical laughter and a tendency for setting up elaborate and artful pranks.

Batman (1989)
Joker makes a grand transition to the big screen, played by Jack Nicholson, opposite Michael Keaton’s iconic cinematic Batman. In this film, Joker’s alter-ego is Jack Napier, a mob thug who had been responsible for killing Bruce Wayne’s – that is, Batman’s – parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995)
Voiced by Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, this iteration of the Joker would become one of the character’s longest lasting, and most celebrated. Hamill reprised the role in Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Justice League and the animated films Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

Heath Ledger as Joker in The Dark Knight, for which he won a posthumous Oscar.Credit: AP

The Dark Knight (2008)
Played by Australian actor Heath Ledger in his final screen role, and a role that won him wide acclaim and a posthumous Oscar, this iteration of the Joker is a criminal mastermind who leaves Joker playing cards at the scenes of his crimes. A psychopath with a warped, sadistic sense of humour, he sees himself as the antithesis of Batman.

Gotham (2014-2019)
Though neither Jerome Valeska nor Jeremiah Valeska took on the moniker of Joker, it is clear the villainous twins, played by Cameron Monaghan, were based on the character. Each of them took on specific characteristics of Joker: Jerome was a terrorist and cult leader who created chaos in Gotham City, while Jeremiah is a psychopath. Monaghan returned to the series for its final episode, in which Jeremiah returned in a costume and face paint reminiscent of the Jack Nicholson iteration of the character.

Suicide Squad (2016)
After a planned appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was cut, Jared Leto’s Joker made his debut in Suicide Squad. Many of his scenes were cut for the theatrical release but later reinstated in the extended cut of the film. He also appeared in a post-apocalyptic sequence in the Zack Snyder cut of the Justice League film.

Margot Robbie as Harleen Quinzel and Jared Leto as Joker in Suicide Squad.Credit:

Joker (2019)
Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, the star of Joker: Folie à Deux, makes his debut in this film as Arthur Fleck, a down-on-his-luck party clown and aspiring stand-up comedian who wrestles with mental illness and lives with his delusional, abusive, adoptive mother. Like Ledger’s Joker, Phoenix’s leans deeply into the character’s mania. Unsurprisingly, as with Ledger, this performance won Phoenix the Oscar.

The Batman (2022)
As if you weren’t perplexed by the fact the Leto and Phoenix Jokers seem to be living in parallel, director Matt Reeves delivered a third, played by Barry Keoghan, making a brief appearance in this film as a patient at the Arkham State Hospital.

Joker: Folie à Deux is released in cinemas on October 3.

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