STACK #243 January 2025

FEATURE MOVIE

HARLEY BEFORE MARGOT

Before Margot Robbie’s incredible performance in Suicide Squad (2016), Harley Quinn was originally set to make her big screen debut in Batman Unchained , the planned fifth instalment of the Batman film series that began with Tim Burton’s 1989 classic starring Michael Keaton. Slated for a 1999 release, the film would have reimagined Harley as the daughter of Jack Nicholson’s Joker, while also featuring a star-studded ensemble of returning villains, including Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and Two-Face. The ambitious project was ultimately scrapped due to the escalating cost of including so many major characters, coupled with the critical and commercial disappointment of Batman & Robin in 1997. Had it been made, the film would have boasted an impressive cast, with Madonna as Harley Quinn, Nicolas Cage as Scarecrow, and returning stars Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jim Carrey.

Five years after Todd Phillips' acclaimed film Joker , for which Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar, comes the much anticipated follow-up, Joker: Folie à Deux . Words Gill Pringle N ot wishing to make just another sequel, Phillips came up with the novel idea of turning it into a musical, casting

”It was a great experience to have somebody else come into it who was willing to go in a scene wherever it led us. There’s not a lot of actors, I think, that are comfortable working in that way, where things might change in a moment, and you’re trying different versions. But she was just really game for anything. If it goes without saying that Gaga is a brilliant performer, then Phoenix also continues to surprise. ”It goes back to this idea that I have, that he won’t admit to, but Joaquin can do anything,” says Phillips. ”So, when you challenge him with something as absurd as, ’Oh, and it turns out Arthur can really dance, not like just that beautiful bathroom dance, but he can tap dance,’ he has it in him. And Joaquin just goes, ’OK, let me figure that out,’ and you put him together with Michael Arnold, who’s a phenomenal choreographer, and they work on that tap for months... and then you watch him do it. ”And nowadays, people go and see movies and they think everything’s CG, everything’s fake. So, I had this thought like, ’Are people going to think we just put Joaquin’s head on some dancer’s body?’ But he’s doing everything, and he doesn’t miss a tap. It’s just crazy.”

Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn opposite Phoenix, reprising his Oscar-winning dual role as Arthur Fleck/Joker. ”In 2018, when we were first making Joker , we could have never imagined it would strike such a chord with audiences around the world. Joaquin and I had talked about a sequel, but never seriously - that changed when we saw audiences’ reaction to Arthur’s story,” says Philips, who also directed the Hangover trilogy. ”But if we were going to do it, we knew we had to swing for the fences, we wanted to make something as crazy and fearless as Joker himself. So, Scott Silver and I wrote a script that

sense to Phoenix, who says, ”In the first film, we discovered moments in the way that Arthur and Joker move in the world that felt musical, oddly graceful, in a way - some kind of rhythm that motivates his movements. There was a nostalgia to the music that he listened to, the music in his head, that we kept discovering more and more as we were shooting.” And, of course, who wouldn’t want to partner with Lady Gaga if you’re going to make a musical? ”I found her to be just without ego, and with such a fierce determination to just get right in with us,” adds Phoenix, talking about Gaga portraying Arthur’s new love interest, Lee Quinzel, who he meets while he’s institutionalised at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker.

delved further into the idea of identity. Who is Arthur Fleck? And where does the music that’s inside of him come from?” he adds. Making the sequel into a musical made perfect

• Joker: Folie à Deux is out Jan 8

Jack Nicholson

Cameron Monaghan

Joaquin Phoenix

LIVE ACTION JOKERS

Cesar Romero

Heath Ledger

Jared Leto

Barry Keoghan

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