The latest trailer for Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix’s upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux arrived earlier this week, giving us our latest look at the two’s respective portrayals of Harley Quinn and the Joker. Now, in a new interview with Empire, the film’s director, Todd Phillips, revealed that Gaga’s character takes some inspiration from the followers of Charles Manson.
Speaking about Gaga’s unique approach to bringing Quinn to life, Philips explained, “While there are some things that people would find familiar in her, it’s really Gaga’s own interpretation, and Scott [Silver, co-writer] and I’s interpretation.”
Continuing, he compared Quinn’s devotion to the Joker to the Manson Family’s devotion to their leader. “She became the way how Manson had girls that idolized him,” Philips said. “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 molded it to the way we wanted it to be.”
Elsewhere in the Empire story, Gaga — who chose to be called by the character’s name, Lee, while on set — herself explained how she altered her singing techniques to better become the character. “People know me by my stage name, Lady Gaga, right?” she said. “That’s me as that performer, but that is not what this movie is; 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.”
Named one of our most anticipated movies of 2024, Joker: Folie à Deux is set to premiere on October 4th. Serving as the sequel to 2019’s Joker, the new movie will be a jukebox musical, featuring songs like “That’s Entertainment!”