Todd Phillips on Why Making ‘Joker 2’ With Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Made Him “More Nervous” Than the First Film

DC Comics’ greatest villain has descended upon the Venice Film Festival. Director Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga swept onto the Lido arm-in-arm Wednesday to discuss the creation of Warner Bros’ wildly anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux. The director and his stars are in Italy in hopes of recreating the first Joker film’s critical and commercial magic, which effectively began when it won Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion in 2019 — an exceedingly rare honor for a Hollywood superhero movie. The film went on to earn over $1 billion at the worldwide box office and earned Phoenix a best-actor Oscar.

Phillips told a packed press conference in Italy that “it feels correct” to be back in Venice debuting his sequel, but he conceded that making the follow-up and bringing it to the world’s oldest film festival made him “more nervous.”

“It’s a lot easier to come into something as an insurgent than it is as the incumbent,” he said. “There’s definitely a sense of more nervousness with this second one.”

Phillips said he and his star, Phoenix, regularly joked on set during the making of the first Joker that their efforts would spawn a series of sequels in the usual Hollywood superhero vein. But they eventually did decide to come back together for a follow-up, but only on the shared belief that it “had to feel audacious and like we were really swinging for the fences,” according to Philips. The director said they asked themselves, “Could we make something unexpected like the first one even though it’s a sequel?”

Phoenix returns to the role of Arthur Fleck for Joker 2, while Lady Gaga joins the franchise in a part inspired by the comic book character Harley Quinn. The duo are known for their toxic romantic relationship in the comics, with the title Folie à Deux referencing the medical term for an identical or similar mental disorder impacting two or more people, usually members of the same family. The film’s supporting cast includes Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Zazie Beetz.

Phillips and Phoenix said their ideas for the sequel hinged on the notion of leaning more heavily into the musical world that occupies the cracked mind of Arthur Fleck. Early in the press conference Philipps said the premise was inspired by a dream Phoenix had — but the famously mercurial actor initially declined to discuss it before the media. Later he relented, to an extent, saying, “I had this dream that I was performing as Joker doing songs, and I just called Todd because I thought there might be something there — and there wasn’t,” he claimed, with Phillips shaking his head and laughing beside him.

Lady Gaga, whom Phillips and Phoenix referred to by her non-stage name Stephanie throughout the press conference, said working with Phoenix was “a breeze.” She then looked to her director and co-star and laughed knowingly, but it was unclear whether she was chuckling about Phoenix’s sometimes rocky public reputation or their experiences together on set.

“I actually really enjoyed it and it was a completely different experience than I’ve ever had with another actor,” Gaga said of her co-star. “He’s incredibly loose and free.”

When asked on their weight loss for the film, Phoenix declined to say exactly how many pounds he lost. “It felt a bit more difficult, but it is safe. But you’re right, I’m now 49, I probably shouldn’t do this again. This is probably it for me,” before saying to his co-star: “We did rehearsals and we left for a month and came back and you’d lost a lot of weight, it was really impressive.” Gaga added: “We fed [Joaquin] blueberries when he was hungry.”

Midway through the press conference in Italy, Phoenix was also asked by a reporter to address the recent controversy that followed his last-minute decision to drop out of a gay romance movie from director Todd Haynes just days before shooting was set to begin. The move sparked outrage from Hollywood’s producer community and has left Haynes and his collaborators in limbo.

Phoenix declined to share his point of view on what transpired, saying, “The other creatives aren’t here to say their piece, and it just doesn’t feel like that would be right.”

“I’m not sure how that would be helpful, so I just don’t think I will,” he added.

Warner Bros’ official synopsis of the film reads: Joker: Folie à Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham, awaiting trial for his crimes as the Joker. While grappling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love but also discovers the music that has always been within him.

The film received its first press screenings Wednesday morning in Venice. Filmgoers on the ground have been buzzing about Phoenix’s powerful and disturbing return as the lead character — as well as his strikingly emaciated appearance — and the movie’s sweeping musical sequences, led by a captivating Gaga.

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in ‘Joker: Folie à Deux.’

Warner Bros. Pictures

Phillips was also asked by a journalist whether the sequel was in some way a response to divided response to the first movie, which some critics viewed as embodying and even justifying violence as a reaction to masculine, incel aggrievement — a reading that the journalist asking the question qualified as “unfair.”

Phillips said responding to such critiques wasn’t his goal at all, but he agreed that some of the criticism felt “undesserved” and said the first film “was painted with a kind of a interesting brush.”

“I understand what people’s concerns were,” he added, “But no, I mean, this movie was not in response to that in any way. Movies are way too hard to make as a statement in response to something.”

“In 2018, when we first made Joker, we could never have imagined it would strike such a chord with audiences around the world,” Phillips writes in his official Venice film fest director’s statement for Joker 2. “Joaquin and I had discussed a sequel, but never seriously — until we witnessed the reaction to Arthur’s story. If we were going to do it, we knew we had to swing for the fences; we wanted to create something as crazy and fearless as Joker himself. So, Scott Silver and I wrote a script that delved further into the idea of identity. Who is Arthur Fleck? And where does the music inside him come from?”

The director didn’t rule out returning to work within the gritty DC universe he’s created with the Joker films, but emphasized that it would depend on whether any interesting actors, like Phoenix, are willing to collaborate with him on such a project: “As far as continuing in this space, as a filmmaker, probably not — but for me, it’s hard to even say ‘not,’” Phillips said. “Everything I do is dictated on actors. What actor could I work with? Who am I dying to work with and could I build something around that person. Clearly, these films have been built around, Joaquin, then we introduced Gaga. So I can’t really say yes or no, but it’s not necessarily my goal to stay in this space.”

For moviegoers struggling to keep up with Hollywood’s steady output of superhero sagas, the Joker sequel is part of the DC Elseworlds brand, which allows for stories set outside of the shared DC Universe being crafted by DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran. Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II movie and the HBO Max Penguin series also fall under that banner.

Joker 2 releases in North America on Oct. 4.