VENICE, Italy (AP) — “ Joker ” is a tough act to observe. Todd Phillips’ darkish, Scorsese-inspired character research in regards to the Batman villain remodeled a billion {dollars} on the field workplace, received Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar, dominated the cultural discourse for months and created a brand new film landmark.

It wasn’t for everybody, but it surely bought beneath folks’s pores and skin.

Understanding that it was a idiot’s errand to attempt to do it once more, Phillips and Phoenix pivoted, or fairly, pirouetted into what would turn out to be “ Joker: Folie à Deux.” The darkish and fantastical musical journey goes deeper into the thoughts of Arthur Fleck as he awaits trial for homicide and falls in love with a fellow Arkham inmate, Lee, performed by Woman Gaga. There’s singing, dancing and mayhem.

If Phillips and Phoenix have discovered something through the years, it’s that the scarier one thing is, the higher. So as soon as once more they rebelled towards expectations and went for broke with one thing that’s already sharply divided critics.

As with the primary, audiences will get to determine for themselves when it opens in theaters on Oct. 4.

“HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET JOAQUIN PHOENIX TO DO A SEQUEL?”

Any comedian guide film that makes a billion {dollars} goes to have the sequel discuss. However with “Joker” it was by no means a on condition that it could go wherever: Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t do sequels. But it turned out, Phoenix wasn’t fairly executed with Arthur Fleck but both.

In the course of the first, the actor questioned what this character would appear like in several conditions. He and the on-set photographer mocked up basic film posters, like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Yentl” with the Joker in them and confirmed them to Phillips.

“Typically you’re simply executed with one thing and different instances you’ve got an ongoing curiosity,” Phoenix mentioned. “There was simply extra to discover. … I simply felt like we weren’t executed.”

So Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver set to work on a brand new script, one which leaned into the music in Arthur Fleck’s head. Then his dreary Arkham life turns to Technicolor when he meets and falls for Lee, a Joker superfan.

“Joaquin Phoenix shouldn’t be going to do a line drive. He’s not going to do one thing that’s fan service,” Phillips mentioned. “He needed to be as scared as he was with the primary film. So, we tried to make one thing that’s as audacious and on the market and hopefully folks get it.”

LADY GAGA FINDS LEE’S VOICE, AND LOSES HER OWN

One resolution that’s already sparking debate is casting somebody with a voice like Woman Gaga’s and never utilizing that instrument to its full energy. Phillips, who was a producer on “A Star is Born,” needed somebody who “introduced music with them.” However Lee isn’t a singer.

“Singing is so second nature to me, and making music and acting on stage is so within me. Particularly this music,” Gaga mentioned. “I labored extensively on untraining myself for this film and throwing away as a lot as I may on a regular basis to verify I used to be by no means locking into what I do. I needed to actually sort of erase all of it.”

Phoenix, who wasn’t fairly certain what it could be like working with somebody who has such a larger-than-life famous person persona, discovered Gaga to be refreshingly unpretentious and accessible. And as an actor, he admired her dedication to the character.

“Her energy is in singing and singing a specific means,” he mentioned. “For her to sacrifice that by means of character, to do one thing that individuals would name a musical, however to not be performing it in the way in which that might sound greatest as a singer however to strategy it from the character was a really troublesome course of. I used to be actually impressed along with her willingness to try this.”

Along with writing a “waltz that falls aside” for the movie, Gaga is releasing a companion album, “Harlequin” on Friday with music titles together with “Oh, When the Saints,” “World on a String,” “If My Buddies May See Me Now” and “That’s Life.”

SORRY PUDDIN’, THIS AIN’T MARGOT ROBBIE’S HARLEY QUINN

Very similar to Phoenix’s Joker isn’t Heath Ledger’s or Jack Nicholson’s, Gaga’s Lee shouldn’t be the Harley Quinn of “Birds of Prey.”

“We’re by no means going to outdo what Margot Robbie did,” Phillips mentioned. “It’s important to do one thing 180 levels within the different route.”

Positive, Lee will nonetheless casually gentle one thing on hearth to get a while alone with Joker, however the tumult is extra inside. And Gaga threw herself into making Lee one thing new: An actual particular person, grounded in a actuality that got here earlier than her.

“I spent loads of my time on growing her interior life (which) for me had rather a lot to do along with her storm and what factor was at all times making her about to blow up,” Gaga mentioned. “There’s a specific sort of hazard that she carries along with her, but it surely’s inside and it’s sort of explosive.”

“DO YOU JUST WANT A BRUTE?”

Brendan Gleeson didn’t have a lot hesitation about becoming a member of the ensemble. He’d labored with Phoenix earlier than on “The Village” and was in awe of what he’d executed on the primary film.

“He has an absolute relentless integrity and curiosity and drive,” Gleeson mentioned. “He received’t simply plough the identical furrow for its personal sake.”

However he additionally didn’t wish to play the easy model of an Arkham jail guard.

“I mentioned, look, do you simply desire a brute? As a result of I’m unsure I simply wish to do a brute,” Gleeson mentioned. “He needed one thing extra. We tried to seek out layers on this man.”

CREATING MAYHEM

Anybody who has labored with Phoenix is aware of that he likes to maintain issues contemporary. That will imply one thing as small as altering the placement of a prop or as massive as throwing out choreography that you just’ve been rehearsing for months on the final minute.

“I believe we each love mayhem and never simply in motion pictures however on the set,” Phillips mentioned. “It needed to really feel like something can occur.”

With the crew 95% the identical as the primary, everybody was able to be versatile. Gaga, too, dove proper in, suggesting that they sing dwell on digicam.

“It modified the entire making of the movie,” Phillips mentioned. “We weren’t solely singing dwell, we have been singing dwell otherwise each take.”

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?

Since Arthur killed Robert De Niro’s discuss present host Murray Franklin on dwell tv within the first movie, he’s turn out to be a sort of icon and curiosity thanks in no small half to an oft referenced, however by no means seen, tv film that was made about him. Now, the trial goes to be televised as effectively.

“Beneath all of it, there’s this concept of corruption and the way all the pieces is corrupt within the system, from the jail system to the judicial system to the thought of leisure, fairly frankly,” Phillips mentioned. “This concept that within the States not less than, all the pieces is leisure. A court docket trial may very well be leisure, and a presidential election could be leisure. So, if that’s true, what’s leisure?”

NO LONGER A COMPLETE WILD CARD

It’s simpler to be to the rebel, not the incumbent, Phillips mentioned. Though a Joker movie is rarely going to fly fully beneath the radar, the highlight is undoubtedly extra intense this time round.

“You do really feel like you’ve got a bigger goal in your again,” Phillips mentioned.

Whereas a lot of the movie was made on Warner Bros. soundstages in Los Angeles, the manufacturing did return to New York to movie once more on the Bronx staircase (which now come up on Google Maps because the Joker Stairs) and out of doors a Manhattan courthouse. The manufacturing staged an enormous protest scene, with Gaga, virtually concurrently with the media frenzy across the Donald Trump hush cash trial as if there weren’t sufficient eyes on them already.

Some are additionally handwringing in regards to the sequel’s greater finances and whether or not it might match the success of the primary. However Phillips has discovered to take it in stride.

“There’s a distinct quantity of strain, however that simply comes with making motion pictures,” he mentioned. “You may’t please everyone and also you simply sort of go for it.”

Gleeson has an excellent sunnier outlook.

“It has sort of arthouse film integrity on a blockbuster scale. It’s nice information for cinema, is the way in which I look on it,” Gleeson mentioned. “If these occasion motion pictures can proceed to have depth and could be so conflicting like this one, is we needn’t fear about the way forward for cinema.”

SO, IS IT A MUSICAL?

One factor Phillips didn’t imply to do was ignite a discourse about what’s and isn’t a musical. He’s simply making an attempt to handle expectations.

“Individuals go, ‘what do you imply it’s not a musical?’ And it’s a musical. It has all the weather of a musical. However I assume what I imply by it’s all the musicals I’ve seen depart me pleased on the finish for probably the most half, ‘Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ not being considered one of them. This has a lot unhappiness in it that I simply didn’t wish to be deceptive to folks.”