Lady Gaga’s ‘Joker 2’ Harley Quinn performance ‘surprised’ casting director: ‘I didn’t suggest’ her
Todd Phillips’ upcoming sequel to his original “Joker” film, “Joker: Folie á Deux,” is reportedly centered on music. So, it makes perfect sense that musician and Oscar-winning actress Lady Gaga is playing Harley Quinn.
However, it wasn’t casting director Francine Maisler’s initial idea to cast the “Bad Romance” singer opposite Joaquin Phoenix.
It was Phillips, 53, who picked Gaga for the part. And apparently, he picked right.
“She’s so good in it, you guys. She’s going to blow your mind,” Maisler, 61, said while speaking at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on July 5, via IndieWire. “I didn’t suggest Lady Gaga. It wasn’t my idea. That was Todd Phillips, before me. But I will tell you, she’s really surprising — and really good. I saw it and I was really surprised. I mean, we all knew what she could do in ‘A Star Is Born,’ but I thought, ‘Oh, well, that’s kind of in her wheelhouse.’ Something she could do and just be real. But this … Man, she’s good.”
“Joaquin blows your mind, but that she could keep up with him, and be real — and not just wiped off the screen by what that role is and what the performance is — shows she’s good,” she added.
Gaga, 38, previously emphasized that her portrayal of the character is very much her own.
“You know, my version of Harley is mine and it’s very authentic to this movie and these characters,” she told Access Hollywood in May. “I’ve never done anything like I’ve done in this movie before, so it’s all going to be completely brand new and really fun.”
Margot Robbie is known for her portrayal of Quinn in “Suicide Squad” (2016), “Birds of Prey” (2020) and “The Suicide Squad” (2021). The now-pregnant actress, 34, voiced her support for Gaga’s take on the role after finding out in 2022 that the singer had gotten it, telling Entertainment Weekly that Gaga will “do something incredible with it.”
Robbie also spoke on the role in her January Variety cover story.
“I always wanted Harley to be a character that would get passed on to other actresses to play, the way there are so many iconic male characters,” she said. “That was always the dream for her. Harley’s so fun and can go in so many different directions. You put her in someone else’s hands, and it’s like, ‘What are they going to do with her?’ The options are endless.”
The sequel will be different from the original in that music is heavily involved.
“Music is an essential element,” Phillips told Entertainment Weekly in April. “To me, that doesn’t veer too far from the first film.”
The official trailer dropped in April. In it, Quinn is a patient, rather than a psychiatrist, at Arkham Asylum.
“We use music to make us whole, to balance the fractures within ourselves,” a voiceover says.
On set, Gaga was in character at all times, according to Lawrence Sher.
“I didn’t know [Gaga] at all,” the Oscar-nominated cinematographer told “The Trenches Talk” podcast in July 2023. “Strangely, I felt like I never even met her, even during the makeup/hair tests. Maybe it was my philosophy of not trying to get in their space. And then I remember for a week, being like, ‘God, I feel like we are disconnecting. Not even connecting. We are, like, on opposites.’ And I would say to my crew, ‘Jesus, I can’t crack it. She either hates me or we hate each other. There’s something weird going on here.’”
The actress finally started warming up to him when he called her by the name “Lee.”
“I barely said anything, except I would say, ‘Stefani, this is where your second team was.’ Minor little things, and then the AD at one point said, ‘Oh you know, Stef would like it if you just called her Lee on set,’” he continued.
“And I was like, 100%. The next thing I said was something ‘Lee,’ and it was like everything changed. From that point on, it was like she was … our whole connection changed.”
Catherine Keener, Brendan Gleeson and Zazie Beetz round out the cast of the sequel, which reportedly has a budget of nearly $200 million, per Variety.
“Joker: Folie à Deux” is set to hit theaters on Oct. 4.
