Lady Gaga Wanted to Free herself Gaga in Joker: Folie à Deux

In October Joker: Folie in Deux not only does it bring back Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, it also introduces his main crush Harley Quinn. Played here by Lady Gaga and named “Lee,” it puts Arthur in Arthur's footsteps, and it looks like the two will be tearing it up together in Gotham City. According to Gaga, putting a spin on Harley meant making some changes.

As part of a follow-up Empire Magazine cover story, the singer-actress explained her choice to downplay her flamboyant and showy presence, especially for the film's music sequences. “Lady Gaga … is not what this film is; I play an actor,” he said. “I worked a lot on the way I sang that I was coming from Lee, and going not come out of me as a player.” While Gaga could control her breathing and rhythm while singing, Lee didn't, so she had to “de-technize” being a pop star.

It also meant singing wrong, sometimes: “There are a lot of notes from him,” laughs Gaga. Using music as an extension of the conversation was “unlike anything I've ever done before.”

The first one The Joker included a reworked origin story for its title character, and it's the same Folie in Deux and Lee. While he's about to fall in love with the Joker, here's a musical psychiatrist for the inmates of Arkham Asylum who has a psychic job directed at him.

Director Todd Phillips said the Harley parts were reserved for Lee, but otherwise, “sure [Gaga’s] my meaning, and mine too [writer] Scott Silver's. He compared her to the women who worshiped Charles Manson and other murderers in prison, and noted, “We took things about Harley from the comics and shaped them into what we wanted them to be in the movie.”

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

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