The pop star, born Stefani Germanotta, has been shooting this sequel to Todd Phillips’s controversial anti-hero spin-off in Los Angeles and New Jersey. She joins Phoenix for a project that, even by the bonkers standards of its predecessor, looks set to be one of the most deranged features released by a mainstream studio when it sees daylight late next year.
That Folie a Deux would make the original Joker look like a gentle chuckle-fest was apparent long before cameras began rolling – or before Gaga was unveiled in the role of the Joker’s lover, Harley Quinn.
One early rumour was that the film was going to be a musical but not in the traditional sense. “The Singing in the Rain rape scene from A Clockwork Orange is the best way to describe the musical aspect,” an “insider” said on Reddit.
They elaborated that the deaths would be “extremely gruesome”. “There’s multiple decapitations, torture scenes, a castration, bombs going off, and a very Clockwork Orange-style rape scene, with the victim ending up dead”.
The claims were undermined, though, by the insider’s assertion that Lady Gaga would play a character other than Harley Quinn. But in recent weeks footage has emerged of Gaga in Harley’s instantly recognisable “Queen of Hearts” outfit. Phillips has also shared an image of Harley cradling Joker, aka failed stand-up Arthur Fleck.
Lady Gaga is seen on the set of "Joker: Folie a Deux" in New York City. Photo / Getty Images
The Reddit prediction was correct on one point, however. Folie a Deux is to be a musical. One theory is the action will unfold “inside the mind” of the deranged Harley. The song and dance numbers are to represent episodes of psychological breakdown.
All of which suggests Harley will be an unreliable narrator – much like Phoenix’s Fleck in the first movie, where we saw him cracking up the audience at a comedy club only for it to be later revealed that his performance had been a dud. The applause was all in his head.
While filming has ended, much about Folie a Deux is still shrouded in mystery. But even if the Clockwork Orange parallels prove wide of the mark, it is obvious that Philips is determined to push the envelope even further than he did with Joker.
Joker was accused by some of amounting to an “Incel’s manifesto” by portraying the angry and ultimately violent Fleck in a sympathetic light. Phoenix actually walked out when that point was put to him in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
Hissy fit behind him, he went on the win the Oscar for Best Actor. This was his cue for a surreal acceptance speech about veganism. “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby,” he said. It was a line that could have sprung straight from the Joker’s subconscious.
Can you get any weirder than Joaquin Phoenix talking about inseminating cows? With Joker 2 everyone involved appears determined to give it their best shot. The sense that Folie a Deux has been surreal on both sides of the cameras has been confirmed by extras. During indoor scenes, their phones were covered with stickers to prevent photographs leaking. And some extras say they have been denied their legally mandated bathroom breaks.
extras in joker 2 have a camera security sticker on their phones for indoor filming as part of their NDA omg… WB really is not playing with the leaks pic.twitter.com/37yvWjicsq
“Why are you drinking more water? So you have to go pee again?” an assistant director on the project reportedly told an extra, who subsequently reported the studio to the Screen Actors Guild.
SAG confirmed to TMZ that it is investigating reports of crew not being allowed to go to the bathroom. Yet it wouldn’t be the first time the Phillips Joker franchise has blotted its copybook when it comes to nipping to the loo. During the gory subway scene in the original, extras were shut in a carriage for three hours – leaving those requiring the bathroom to break open a door at the back.
However, it seems certain that the anarchy will extend far beyond unhappiness over loo breaks. The musical numbers have been subject to wild speculation. Phoenix proved he can sing in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, for which he learned to play guitar and imitate Cash’s rasping delivery. What we don’t know is who will write the songs – though it has been confirmed Icelandic cellist Hildur Guonadottir, who has previously toured with Animal Collective, will return to compose the score.
There are reports, too, that Phoenix and Gaga have gone “full method”. Phoenix has been here before – for the first Joker he lost nearly 25kg. “That’s really what I started with,’ he stated. “And, as it turns out, that then affects your psychology. You start to go mad when you lose that amount of weight in that amount of time.”
He looks every bit as gaunt in footage from the new film, where Fleck is seen running through the streets of Los Angeles, dodging cars and fleeing well-wishers, including a stranger dressed as The Joker.
Joaquin Phoenix is seen on the set of Joker: Folie a Deux at 60 Centre St in New York City. Photo/ Getty Images
Gaga, too, knows all about the method. Making the - presumably unintentionally - hilarious House of Gucci with Ridley Scott she kept up her bizarre “Whens’a your Dolmio Day?” accent on and off camera.
“She was so in character every minute of the day I saw her,” a bamboozled Scott reported. “Even socially, she was right in character. So I thought, I think this has always been her. But it wasn’t.”
Gaga has been diving headfirst into the thespian madness once more, judging by footage from the Folie a Deux set. In one sequence she is led up steps surrounded by protesters – one of whom she turns and snogs enthusiastically. She looks as if she’s having several out-of-body experiences at once.
“The combination of the two will be exactly what we hope, which is exciting, and we’ll find magic every day on set,” said Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher. “Hopefully, we’ll also have a bit of madness in there. We like when there is a little bit of chaos.”
That chaos is said to include multiple endings. Quite why Philips feels the need to shoot more than one conclusion is as yet unclear – and it is always possible that this is a fake story put out to add to the air of unreality around the production.
Lady Gaga kisses an extra on set. Photo / Getty Images
The Joker was an anomaly in the DC Universe – a Batman romp without Batman. However, it grossed more than $1 billion ($1.6b) and Phoenix made history as the first lead star of a comic book adaptation to win Best Actor. (Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor for portraying the Joker in The Dark Knight in 2008). So it is no surprise that Phillips would return to the scene of his greatest triumph – or that he would persist with his unique take on DC lore.
He’s even hinted the Caped Crusader might put in a formal showing this time. “What I would like to see someone tackle is what Batman looks like from that Gotham,” he said in 2020. “I’m not saying I’m going to do that. What was interesting to me about the inclusion of Batman in our movie was, ‘What kind of Batman does that Gotham make?”
One big change is likely to be the relationship between Joker and Harley. In the comics – and the dreadful Suicide Squad from 2016 – she starts as Joker’s psychotherapist at Arkham Asylum, where he has been incarcerated after spreading his madness across Gotham City.
But the speculation is that in Folie a Deux, Arthur and Harley will be patients together at the asylum (a shuttered hospital in Belleville, New Jersey). This would chime with the title –Folie a Deux translating as “a delusion or mental illness shared by two people in close association”.
Whether these rumours are true or not, it is clear that Folie a Deux will sit outside the new DC universe, which is in the process of being rebooted by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. Gunn has cleaned house at DC, ditching Henry Cavill as Superman and announcing that he is directing a “hopeful” new project about the Man of Steel.
The Joker-verse isn’t alone in this. Robert Pattinson’s Batmansaga will also exist adjacent to the Gun-verse – in a corner of the DC universe labelled “Elseworld”. But in one sense Joker 2 will almost certainly be unique. With the third Ant-Man movie and the Shazam sequel flopping in recent months, there is a feeling that superheroes’ dominance at the box office is coming to an end. If that is the case, then with Folie a Deux the genre is set to bow out in a blaze of pure cinematic insanity.
