LOS ANGELES − Girl Gaga recollects discovering mountains of inspiration for a twisted Joker love story whereas driving via Large Sky Nation in late 2022 together with her boyfriend, Michael Polansky.

Polansky, a San Francisco entrepreneur, just isn’t the Joker right here, in fact. Gaga, 38, would not even attempt to disguise the sizable diamond engagement ring from her now-fiancé throughout an interview. However the Wyoming and Teton Vary highway journey was awesomely illuminating for her function as Harley Quinn, the notorious love curiosity to Joaquin Phoenix’s DC archvillain within the wildly anticipated sequel to 2019’s “Joker.”

“So Michael, my fiance, and I had been driving round a number of the most lovely mountains on the earth,” Gaga says. “And I used to be pondering, ‘Are you able to consider that this girl says to (the Joker) that ‘We’re gonna construct a mountain collectively’? And I utterly consider she believes that. It is a full fantasy.”

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It is a darkish phantasm on the core of “Joker: Folie à Deux” (in theaters Friday), a warped love story and unconventional supervillain musical starring two of probably the most electrifying and eccentric actors in Hollywood. Do not go in search of Batman battles or gleeful crime capers from the duo of Joker (mentally disturbed loner Arthur Fleck) and Harley Quinn (fellow psychological affected person Lee Quinzel).

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No ‘Batman.’ No financial institution robberies. So what’s ‘Joker 2’ about?

They did not fess as much as it on the time, however Phoenix and director/producer/co-writer Todd Phillips had lengthy privately mentioned a sequel to their R-rated “Joker.” This was ensured when the primary movie went on to earn $1 billion on the worldwide field workplace, 11 Oscar nominations and two wins − together with for finest actor for Phoenix, whose Arthur is arrested however celebrated because the Joker on the finish of the chaotic origin story. But, the follow-up was by no means going to be a comic-book film cash seize and even what Phoenix, 49, calls “conventional.”

“We did not wish to simply keep on from the primary movie like, he is the Joker now, so now we will see him on the market robbing banks,” Phoenix says. “There wasn’t going to be any of that.”

Phillips and Phoenix began speaking a couple of relationship Joker-style.

“And what occurs when any individual falls in love with the picture that you simply challenge? There was one thing ripe about that,” Phoenix says. “As a result of even as soon as he is arrested within the unique, Arthur is above all the pieces. He is like, there are jokes occurring inside me that you simply’re by no means, ever going to get.”

“Folie à Deux” is about two years later, after a TV film concerning the Joker’s unique killing spree, and Arthur is over the mass adoration of his hideously made-up Joker persona. Phoenix acquired his inspiration by imagining the true every day lifetime of the ’70s rock band KISS.

“Did you ever suppose, how about Gene Simmons from KISS? The place 20-year-olds are portray their faces, placing on platform sneakers, all rock ‘n’ roll,” Phoenix says, laughing. “However what occurs once you’re in your 40s and like, ‘I do not wish to put the make-up on anymore’? I simply began laughing about that. Todd and I had been like, perhaps that is the start of one thing.”

In “Folie à Deux,” the every day toll of life within the violent offenders wing of Arkham State Hospital − with every day medicines and the oppressive watch of soul-crushing guards − has extinguished Arthur’s flame. If Arthur appeared alarmingly skinny within the unique “Joker” because of Phoenix’s 52-pound weight reduction, it is much more obvious within the second film. Arthur shuffles out of his cell, seemingly extra emaciated, all jutting shoulder bones on his uncovered again.

“That was the primary day of taking pictures, and I used to be very, very low,” Phoenix says. “I undoubtedly was thinner than I used to be on the primary one.”

“That is not CG, that is simply his physique,” Phillips says of the shoulders. “We talked about him not dropping the burden once more. As a result of I did not need him to be unhealthy, fairly frankly. However he simply thought, ‘No, Arthur has to look a sure manner.’ It was actually necessary to him. If Arthur was a bummer earlier than, now he is an actual bummer.”

After the success of ‘Joker,’ Joaquin Phoenix and Girl Gaga discovered themselves taking pictures beneath a ‘microscope’

Arthur’s despondent perspective adjustments instantly upon assembly Lee in “Folie à Deux” (a French time period that describes a psychiatric syndrome through which two folks share the identical delusional dysfunction). The pop icon and actress (“A Star Is Born”) had emerged because the clear alternative as soon as Phillips and Phoenix determined the movie could be a fantasy musical, an thought which had roots in Arthur’s famed stair and loo dances in “Joker.”

Phillips says the downsides of directing two cultural luminaries like Phoenix and Gaga (actual identify Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) had been the swarming paparazzi and fan expectations.

“It was not straightforward, however not due to their personalities,” Phillips says. “After we made the primary ‘Joker,’ no person knew what the hell we had been making. It was all beneath the radar. Out of the blue, particularly after you invite Girl Gaga in, you are beneath a microscope.”

Gaga hit the bottom belting a Teton-prompted cowl of “Gonna Construct a Mountain,” which seems on her new “Harlequin” album and in addition impressed an elaborate dream waltz for the budding display screen couple that devolves right into a nightmare dance.

“It was thrilling as a result of I introduced the scene thought to Todd and Joaquin,” Gaga says. “It begins within the spirit of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I assumed probably the most wild factor that these two might think about about themselves is being the image of well being and happiness. However then it falls aside. The waltz is damaged, so are they.”

The sequel rolls right into a sensational, televised Joker trial of the century and Arthur reverts to his wisecracking, garishly face-painted self, urged on by the equally reworked Harley Quinn. However that is the height comic-book fare. The singing of requirements to the digicam and the dancing present the dedication stage to the weird musical.

Clearly, Gaga lives on this world and even needed to put the brakes on her voice to make Lee’s beginner singing reasonable. “Stroll the Line” star Phoenix, who took faucet classes at age 8, additionally has song-and-dance expertise. However every large-scale quantity required sufficient weeks of coaching that Phillips feels the necessity to level out about Phoenix: “There is not any CGI, there is no face alternative, there is no stand-in for this dude.”

A full-on Joker faucet dance interlude required two hours of coaching every day “for months” with choreographer Michael Arnold, Phoenix says, “after which it is within the film for like 27 seconds. However, clearly, it’s totally complicated.”

Throughout the coaching, Arnold launched Phoenix to the professional faucet “toe stand” transfer, balancing on the toe ideas.

“I went to do it, and I simply stopped,” Phoenix says. ” I did not wish to break my ankle.”

But, when he was alone, with out strain, Phoenix discovered he might pull off the transfer. Capturing the scene with a belting Gaga on the piano, he felt impressed to let the toe stands rip.

“I feel it was identical to the vitality of seeing Stefani, just like the veins had been bulging in her neck as she was screaming,” Phoenix says. “I used to be like, ‘Properly, I’ve acquired to strive it on movie, even when I fall.’ So I threw them in. And I could not consider I did them. Me and Stefani simply acquired caught up within the spirit.”