Lady Gaga Says ‘Joker 2’ Singing Is an ‘Extension of the Dialogue’ and ‘Unlike Anything I’ve Ever Done’; Harley Quinn Is Like One of Charles Manson’s Girls
Lady Gaga said in an interview with Empire Magazine that her singing in the upcoming comic book musical “Joker: Folie à Deux” is “unlike anything I’ve ever done before.” The Grammy and Oscar winner stars opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the movie as Lee, a reimagining of Harley Quinn.
“People know me by my stage name, Lady Gaga, right? That’s me as that performer, but that is not what this movie is,” Gaga said. “I’m playing a character. So I worked a lot on the way that I sang to come from Lee, and to not come from me as a performer…How do you take music and have it just be an extension of the dialogue, as opposed to breaking into song for no conceivable reason?”
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Gaga similarly had to learn how not to sing in her normal performing voice while acting as the rising music star Ally in Bradley Cooper’s beloved “A Star Is Born.” But Ally was a huge talent, whereas Lee is anything but.
“For me, there’s plenty of bum notes, actually, from Lee,” Gaga said. “I’m a trained singer, right? So even my breathing was different when I sang as Lee. When I breathe to sing on stage, I have this very controlled way to make sure that I’m on pitch and it’s sustained at the right rhythm and amount of time, but Lee would never know how to do any of that. So it’s like removing the technicality of the whole thing, removing my perceived art-form from it all and completely being inside of who she is.”
“Joker: Folie à Deux” director Todd Phillips told Empire that Lee is “really Gaga’s own interpretation” of Harley Quinn, although there are “some things that people would find familiar in her” from the comic books.
“She became the way how [Charles] Manson had girls that idolized him,” Phillips added about Lee. “The way that sometimes these [imprisoned murderers] have people that look up to them. There are things about Harley in the movie that were taken from the comic books, but we took it and moulded it to the way we wanted it to be.”
” “Joker: Folie à Deux” will world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival before opening in theaters Oct. 4 from Warner Bros.
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