What’s the most difficult way to follow-up a terminally bleak, billion-dollar, Oscar-winning blockbuster superhero (adjacent) movie with no super heroes? Add in some live song and dance numbers, naturally. That’s what Joaquin Phoenix said the team behind the anticipated Joker: Folie à Deux decided to do, a choice that terrified the notoriously fearless actor from day one.
“How could we possibly do the music in the most honest way possible?” he asked in a joint interview with co-star Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips that aired on Good Morning America on Friday (Sept. 27) about the bold decision to have untrained singer Phoenix and Grammy-winner Gaga sing together live on stage during the film’s fantasy sequences. “When we first started, I did not want anything to be spontaneous and I wanted to sound as good as possible,” said Phoenix, who was previously described as being “sick” with nerves over singing alongside Gaga.
Phoenix noted that it was Gaga’s idea to do it live, which he thought sounded great for her, since that’s what she does for a living. “You were really cool and kind of made me feel comfortable about that,” he said, with Gaga adding, “I can assure you that Joaquin using his natural voice was just so much more compelling than any lip synching would ever be.”
While Phoenix said that he just didn’t want his Joker ride to end after his Oscar-winning first spin as washed-up clown Arthur Fleck in 2019’s intense Joker, Gaga said that original film really interested her in joining Phoenix and director Phillips’ demented world. “I loved Arthur so much, like, who would be the love in his life?” the singer said she wondered.
Plus, she added, there was something “so completely freeing” about playing Quinn, including the ability to sneak some bits of herself into the character that she’s always been a bit embarrassed, or private, about. “When I first saw the film I was like, ‘Oh, that’s in there! That part of me that I want no one to know about,’” said Gaga of her third starring role in a major motion picture following her breakout in 2018’s A Star is Born and a strong showing in the all-star ensemble in 2021’s House of Gucci.
Though she seems to always be poised and powerful, Gaga said those moments she sees herself in Quinn are when her chracter seems “so uncomfortable… she’s like on the edge. There’s definitely been times in my life where I felt that way.”
Even more challenging, Gaga recorded an entire Joker-themed album, Harlequin, out today, in which she channels her character Harley Quinn on a series of classic covers and a few originals. “Lee’s not a performer and I am and in a scene as a different character it’s just completely different,” Gaga said of tapping into what makes the Joker’s equally off-kilter love stand out from Gaga’s stage persona.
“It’s Lee’s reality, it’s their shared reality, it’s coming from that character not from me as a performer,” she said. “I don’t just sing that way in this movie, I also sing with my full voice.”
The 13-track album features a number of Harley-fied covers of “Good Morning” (from Singing in the Rain), “If My Friends Could See Me Now” (Sweet Charity), as well as a soul-funk version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” (here titled “Oh, When the Saints”), “That’s Entertainment,” the Carpenters’ “Close to You” and “World on a String” as well as two originals, “Folie à Deux” and the rock-edged “The Joker.”
The surprise companion album to the film was recorded alongside the sessions for Gaga’s upcoming as-yet-untitled seventh studio album, which is due out in February, with a first single dropping next month. Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters on Oct. 4