‘Joker’ Sequel Unveils First Look at Lady Gaga in Character

Lady Gaga is getting her closeup in Joker: Folie à Deux, with filmmaker Todd Phillips sharing a first look at her in character on Instagram. Naturally, it was for Valentine’s Day.

Gaga is believed to be playing DC mainstay Harley Quinn in the sequel to Joker, the 2019 film that grossed $1 billion and earned star Joaquin Phoenix a best actor Oscar.

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Phillips once again directs the film, which he wrote with Scott Silver. During production on the previous Joker, Phillips shared photos of Phoenix on-set, a tradition he kept up when on Dec. 10 he took to Instagram to announce filming had commenced with a shot of his leading man.

Filming is underway in New York and Los Angeles as it heads toward its Oct. 4, 2024, release date from Warner Bros. Gaga previously worked with Phillips on A Star Is Born, which he produced.

The first Joker was a surprise hit, with the R-rated movie becoming one of the top-grossing DC films of all time. It followed Arthur Fleck, an aspiring stand-up and clown whose mental health issues cause him to spiral after suffering rejection after rejection. He ultimately assumes the Joker persona and becomes a folk hero. The sequel title, Folie à Deux, is a reference to a medical term for an identical or similar mental disorder impacting two or more people, usually members of the same family.

The Joker sequel arrives amid a transition for DC, with newly installed DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran developing a slate of film, TV, animation and video game projects that will all take place in a shared universe. The exceptions will be rare projects such as Joker or Matt Reeves’ The Batman sequel that will be branded as DC Elseworlds titles, a term taken from the comics in which alternate-universe stories are told.

“The bar is going to be very high for projects to be outside the DCU, the Elseworlds projects,” explained Safran last month. “But every now and then there will be something that lives up to that.”

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