Followers of Lady Gaga have by no means seen her like this earlier than.
“That is for positive,” the actress-musician, 38, tells PEOPLE when requested concerning the novelty of starring in Joker: Folie à Deux (in theaters Oct. 4). As an knowledgeable in reinvention — who has saved audiences on their toes as a pop celebrity, vogue icon, jazz crooner and main woman — she welcomes a brand new problem.
“I actually needed to do one thing that I’ve by no means accomplished earlier than,” says Gaga of enjoying DC Comics villainess Harleen “Lee” Quinzel a.ok.a. Harley Quinn reverse Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck a.ok.a. Joker. Within the new sequel to Todd Phillips’ 2019 hit origin story, Gaga and Phoenix, 49, alternate between the grim actuality of Gotham’s Arkham State Hospital and the fanciful song-and-dance numbers representing their shared insanity (sure, it’s a musical).
The opposite purpose she selected Folie à Deux as her follow-up to 2018’s Oscar-winning A Star Is Born and 2021’s House of Gucci, says Gaga, is her recognition of these two extremes. “There’s a lot round id and duality on this film,” says the lady born Stefani Germanotta. “For me, having a persona in my life as Gaga, I feel I simply needed to make it actually grounded in actuality as a result of I undoubtedly assume having two identities is admittedly difficult. And I knew that there was an actual story in there.”
Lee was a research of contradictions, provides the “Die With a Smile” singer. Her “love and obsession” for Arthur, she says, “was additionally admiration and disgust. I feel it was truthful and dishonest. I feel it was actually harmful, and in addition fully peaceable.”
Via each twist and switch in Folie à Deux, the character “was form of all of it,” says Gaga. “She was like a really nonlinear individual — and I feel we’re all like that. Typically in storytelling, I feel there is a pull to need to make issues make sense. And that was our enemy making this film.”
She continues, “The extra that she may very well be a contradiction, really, I assumed the extra actual she was.”
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In truth, audiences seeing Folie à Deux, which facilities on the homicide trial of Arthur over the occasions of Joker, could also be left with extra questions than solutions in the case of Lee. Gaga herself admits she “didn’t actually” go away the character behind after wrapping the movie’s shoot.
“I imply, I did not carry her dwelling with me,” she provides. However “you fall in love with the characters that you simply play. I at all times have, anyway. Typically I’ve had bother leaving them.”
Joker: Folie à Deux, costarring Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Leigh Gill, Zazie Beetz, Sharon Washington and Steve Coogan, is in theaters Oct. 4.