Todd Phillips says Lady Gaga's Harley Quinn isn't like past interpretations

The sequel Joker: Madness for Two, features the return of Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck/Joker, and the debut of Lady Gaga like Harley Quinn, who in this Joker-verse of Todd Phillipsto his incarnation of the popular character is known as Lee.

It is precisely about this interpretation of Gaga, of whom Phillips clarifies that she is not like the Harley Quinn we know from the animated series of the 90s, or from films like Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey, where she was played by Margot Robbie.

In an extensive interview with Variety, Phillips explained, among other things, how he and Phoenix came to terms with this new interpretation of the character by Gaga.

It all started with Phoenix's desire to have a female counterpart to Joker who could serve as his dance partner. Phillips and his co-writer later Scott Silver thought of Harley Quinn. As played by Gaga, this Harley may be manipulative and amoral, but she's also down to earth:

“We took away the high-pitched voice, the accent, the chewing gum and all that kind of saucy stuff that appears in comics,” dice Phillips. “We wanted it to fit into this Gotham world that we created from the first film.”

As for the musical aspect, Gaga and Phoenix prepared differently. Gaga, on the other hand, is a talented artist capable of tackling any musical genre, and Phoenix has the ability to get into tune in a song. They both had a desire to create a rawer sound, which required singing off-key.:

Gaga explains: “We asked ourselves, ‘What does it take for two people to break into song in the middle of a conversation? Where does the music come from when no one can hear it except the characters? ’” Neither Arthur nor Lee are professional singers and they shouldn't sound like they are..”

Phoenix agrees: “It was important to me that we never performed the songs the way you normally do in a musical. “We didn’t want vibrato or perfect notes.”

Variety adds that while in many musical films the actors sing to a pre-recorded track, in this film, Phoenix and Gaga did it all liveaccompanied by a pianist who played off-camera, trying to keep up with the rhythm they established.

Joker 2 will have its world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. At the same Venice Lido, the original installment, Jokerpremiered in 2019, and won the Golden Lion. The festival will take place from August 28 to September 7.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) awarded Joker 2 the R rating by:

“Some strong violence, constant language, some sexuality and brief total nudity.”

This is the same rating as the original film, Joker (2019), although for different reasons: “strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, brief sexual language and images.”

In addition to Phoenix and Gaga, the main cast includes Zazie Beetz reprising her role as Sophie Dumond, with the new additions of Catherine Keener (Get Out, The 40 Year Old Virgin), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges, Harry Potter), Jacob Lofland (Mud), y Harry Lawtey (Industry).

Joker: Madness for Two will be released in theaters on October 4, 2024.