Lady Gaga Says She and Joaquin Phoenix Ripped Up and Revised Joker 2 Script

In a little under a month, Joker: Folie à Deux will introduce movie fans to Lady Gaga’s incarnation of Harley Quinn opposite Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck/Joker. Though Gaga is an accomplished musician and singer, this is only her third major film in a leading role. But Gaga got an unexpected education in collaborative filmmaking from Phoenix when they rewrote lines of the script mid-production.

“We met in Joaquin’s trailer a lot and sometimes we would just rip the script to shreds and start over,” Gaga told Vogue . “It was a really cool, cathartic process.” Director and screenwriter Todd Phillips confirmed Gaga’s story and gave an example of how their process worked.

“My take on Joaquin is that he’s the tunnel at the end of the tunnel,” Phillips said. “You’re like, ‘Okay, this scene works, let’s just shoot it.’ And Joaquin’s like, ‘No, no, no, let’s just have a quick meeting about it,’ and it’s three hours later and you’re rewriting it on a napkin. What’s great about Lady Gaga is that she really holds her own, both off-camera when we’re in the trailer picking things apart — which she probably learned the night before — but also on camera. It was no small feat.”

Gaga’s version of Harley in the film is named Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, and in this film, she is not Arthur’s therapist. Instead, she is also a patient at Arkham State Hospital who is attracted to the Joker. During the interview, Gaga shared her insight into Harley’s descent into love and madness.

“Harley Quinn is a character that people know from the ether of pop culture,” Gaga said. “I had a different experience creating her, which is my experience with mania and chaos inside — for me, it creates a stillness. Sometimes women are labeled as these overly emotional beings and when we’re overwhelmed, we’re erratic or unhinged. But I wonder if when things get so disconnected from reality, when we’re pushed too far in life, what if it makes you… still? … I would say I was working from a sensory-memory perspective: What does it feel like to walk through the world and be… intensely… prepared. And what happens when you cover all the complexities beneath the surface?”

Joker: Folie à Deux will be released in theaters on October 4.