Arthur Fleck is back! And this time, he’s not alone. He’s bringing the one and only Harleen Quinzel (aka “Lee” in this version) with him! Joker: Folie à Deux is dancing its way in theaters tonight. And we were given the opportunity to view the film with a very special Q&A from director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver!
I will recall when I first saw Joker: Folie à Deux, Phillips and Silver kicked things off with a conversation in which they said those who saw the film previously noted they needed time to process it. And they weren’t kidding. The film was dense, to say the least. And much like its predecessor, it will no doubt be as polarizing. But one can’t help but respect the screenwriting duo for their honesty.
Here’s everything they had to say about the film from the conversation that they held during our screening:
Question: In the first movie, Arthur’s empowerment and his confidence comes from finding all these people – this movement – that basically he unintentionally inspires. What is his sort of relationship with this movement, and how has he evolved, having this movement now that’s coming out in support of him on a trial?
Silver: That was a challenge we had when we were writing, you know? Where do we pick him up two years later? Where is he at? Where is that confidence? You know, when we meet him, he’s not at his height. But yet he’s not going to go back to the Arthur that we saw originally.
Phillips: It’s the Arthur who’s lived through the first movie. So he can’t be the same guy. But you’re right, he’s become this unintentional icon in Gotham to a certain subset of people. To other people, he’s this horrible thing, right?
Silver: But the movie very much takes place, as you’ll see in the beginning, in Arkham. There those questions of where is he, and what is his standing in that place, and what is his meaning to the people around him? I think those questions will be answered…as he goes through the movie,
Question: Why did you work Harvey Dent into this movie, and will we get to see his dark side?
Phillips: We respect the comics. We get the comics. We with Harley’s case, watched the animated series. Of course, Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn. But when we run things through this film – Harvey Dent is perfect example – (it’s actually a simple way of talking about what we kind of what we did with Harley) we really just put the real world lens on it. And not that that other movies didn’t, but we just run it through our Gotham. And so really, the Harvey Dent you meet here is not a huge part [of this]. But if you’re going to have a trial, why wouldn’t you have the Assistant DA prosecuting Arthur Fleck? And that happens to be Harvey Dent. But it’s not about him as we don’t really reveal his dark side. We just see a young Harvey Dent.
Question: What was it like recruiting Miss Gaga?
Phillips: Well, you know, I was lucky enough to know her because I was a producer on Bradley’s movie, Star Is Born. So it wasn’t impossible to kind of send her a text and say, “you know, Scott and I’ve been working on this thing, you know.” I’ll say this the first movie we wrote for Joaquin Phoenix. But we started writing this not knowing who that character (Lee) would be. But the more we kind of fell into this, quite frankly, musical aspect of the film, the more she kept popping up in my head…So it wasn’t that out of place. And then Joaquin and I, we went out to Malibu, where she was. And we had a meeting with her, and we talked to her. Which was kind of amazing. I mean, it’s weird with people like that, because, like, I’ve worked with big actors. [For example] Robert Downey, Jr. He’s as big as it gets. But there’s something about Lady Gaga. It’s on a different level than an actor. It’s like a whole nother. They come with something totally– I can’t explain it. You do feel it when you’re with them. But the amazing thing about her is she just strips that all away pretty quickly, and suddenly she’s just another actor in the movie. And that really was helpful for me, but also for Joaquin.
Question: After the success of the first film, what creative freedom did you get on this one?
Phillips: Well, I think that’s a really good point. I mean, there’s a couple ways to do a sequel. I’ve done sequels before. Hangover 2 is a sequel to Hangover 1. It is basically Hangover 1 with different punchlines. And that was kind of the spirit of making that movie. I feel like comedy sequels are very often done in that way. Austin Powers 2 is basically Austin Powers 1 with different jokes. And that’s kind of different for this movie. There was no way Joaquin was going to do it if it was done like that. There was no way Joaquin was even going to do anything with the number two after it, even if you say “deux,” unless it was entirely different and risky, and sort of “swing for the fences.” So that kind of led the charge. I mean, we weren’t going to go and just write the same expected sequel, the same movie, or even that “Oh, that guy was standing on the cop car is now running a crime syndicate in Gotham.” Not only would I not really necessarily have that kind of interest, but there’s no way Joaquin is making that movie, because he knows that wasn’t really Arthur Fleck. The Arthur Fleck that we all created…And yeah, with having that kind of success [from the first], you have a lot of goodwill at a studio like Warner Bros, but you also realize that goodwill is perishable. And you got to use it, so let’s go for it. Let’s swing for the fences and do something different. It does feel like, in today’s day and age, the way the movie business has transformed during the pandemic, you look at something like Barbie – [Greta] just went for it. She did something kind of weird, and it worked on a level, because it was different. It was not what you expected. So to some extent, I think when you’re when you’re dealing in this space the big movies, you got to give it a reason to show up. And I think we just aim to do something really different from the first one.
Question: Does the musicality of this one lessen the type of intensity in this movie that the first film had from beginning to end?
Phillips: Here’s what I’ll tell you. For the people that have seen this movie, in general – and this is no pressure to you guys at the end – they sit and they don’t move for about three to five minutes. And then they text me – the ones that know me – or email me and go, “I need a minute to process the movie.”…I think it’s going to leave you with a very unsettling [feeling]. I think it’s unsettling. But I also think – again, not to give it away since you’re about to see it – it clarifies a lot of things that you might have had questions about in the first film…I hope it all gets answered. If you don’t understand it, email me. But I think it’ll all come together. And I don’t think the music lessens the tension at all.
Question: There’s such a wonderful improvisational quality to the first film, especially when you guys created the bathroom dance scene and all of that. Because of the pressures of making a sequel, especially if there’s more music involved, did you feel you had the same ability to improvise on this one?
Phillips: Joaquin needs to have the freedom to not think anything is set in stone. And that goes even down to the music, which, really, Lady Gaga had to kind of re-learn how she does music. Because what Joaquin wanted to do was – the way he does every take different in the first film – he even wanted to do the singing different. Well, how do you do that? Because you have to pre-record the music. Obviously, they’re going to sing live. You don’t hire Lady Gaga to not sing live. Joaquin will do anything. So he wants to sing live too. But then what do you do with the actual arrangement of the song? So what we discovered was, well, we just had a pianist live on set in a soundproof booth, and let Joaquin or Gaga lead the way. And that pianist will find that. And then it’s up to us, in editing, to kind of backwards engineer the arrangement to fit…so he still had the freedom to improvise, or give a different performance between take one, take three, etc. Because the music followed him, it didn’t lead him. Does that make sense?
Question: The first movie was such a huge success before the new era of DC Studios. And now in the new era of DC Studios, I wanted to know, did the production process on this one change at all? And the James and Peter have any input?
Phillips: With all due respect to them, this is kind of a Warner Brothers movie. And that’s them (WB) also wanting it to be like, “okay, Todd. He did his thing. Let Todd continue to do his thing.” So, no.
Silver: We had started before they even came on.
Phillips: While they have seen cuts, probably, of the movie – actually, they did see a cut of the movie. But it’s not like “DC” proper, even though it will say “DC” at the end.
Question: Can you talk about the last day of shooting on this one?
Phillips: So we were in New York shooting on the stairs. There was about 8000 paparazzi people. Yeah, it was a very frustrating day. So we all wanted to get out of there. But we then had this little get together downtown and my friend’s bar. And it was actually really beautiful. Everybody was there, of course, the group.
Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in theaters nationwide starting tonight!
