Todd Phillips recently discussed Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in the upcoming ‘Joker: Folie À Deux’ during an interview with Variety.
“The high voice, that accent, the gum-chewing and all that sort of sassy stuff that’s in the comics, we stripped that away,” he said. “We wanted her to fit into this world of Gotham that we created from the first movie.”
Margot Robbie brought Harley Quinn to life in films like ‘Suicide Squad’ and ‘Birds of Prey’ decades after her introduction in the 1990s animated ‘Batman’ series.
The upcoming sequel introduced Gaga’s version as a more dominant and amoral villain with musical elements featuring raw, unstable sound and off-key singing.
“We asked ourselves what would need to be true for two people to just break into song in the middle of a conversation?” the singer told Variety. “Where does the music come from when no one can hear it but the characters? Neither Arthur nor Lee are professional singers, and they shouldn’t sound like they are.”
Trailers show Harley as a psych patient like Arthur/Joker in Arkham. The director believes there are familiar elements in Gaga’s portrayal of the supervillain.
“She became the way [Charles] Manson had girls that idolized him,” he explained to Empire in July. “The way that sometimes these [imprisoned murderers] have people that look up to them. There are things about Harley in the movie that were taken from the comic books, but we took it and molded it to the way we wanted it to be.”
‘Joker: Folie À Deux’ will hit theaters on October 4, 2024.
