Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix hit London for ‘Joker: Folie A Deux’ UK premiere

26 September, 2024

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix at the 'Joker: Folie A Deux’ UK premiere

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix appeared on the red carpet together in London last night (September 26) for the UK premiere of Joker: Folie A Deux.

The pair posed for pictures together alongside the film’s director Todd Phillips. They also took time to speak to the crowd in attendance, with Phoenix even surprising fans outside the cinema with tickets to see the film.

Gaga dressed in an outfit seemingly nodding to ‘Harlequin’, her upcoming Folie À Deux “companion album”, with music inspired by the film, which she unveiled earlier this week.

The album is set for release this Friday (September 27) a week before the movie opens in cinemas worldwide on October 4, the fifth anniversary of 2019’s Joker. Gaga appears as Harley Quinn in the movie alongside Phoenix, who plays the titular Joker, while the likes of Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Brendan Gleeson and Zazie Beetz also feature.

Joker: Folie à Deux, which received its premiere in Venice earlier this month, has been referred to as a jukebox musical, with covers of a number of jazz standards including ‘Oh, When The Saints’, ‘Get Happy‘ and ‘That’s Life‘, along with a few original tracks, which are all set to feature on ‘Harlequin’.

Check out some images from the red carpet here:

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix – CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole_Getty Images for Warner Bros. Pictures
Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix
(L-R) Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix – CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
(L-R) Todd Phillips, Leigh Gill, Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix and Harry Lawtey Gareth Cattermole
(L-R) Todd Phillips, Leigh Gill, Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix and Harry Lawtey Gareth Cattermole – CREDIT: Getty Images

 

In an interview with Vogue earlier this month, Gaga said that she drew on her own experiences when playing the character: “Harley Quinn is a character people know from the ether of pop culture. I had a different experience creating her, namely my experience with mania and chaos inside – for me, it creates a quietness. Sometimes women are labelled as these overly emotional creatures and when we are overwhelmed we are erratic or unhinged. But I wonder if when things become so broken from reality, when we get pushed too far in life, what if it makes you…quiet?”

She continued: “I would say that I worked from a sense-memory perspective: What does it feel like to walk through the world and be…braced, in an intense way. And what happens when you cover up all of the complexities beneath the surface?”

NME gave Joker: Folie à Deux a four-star review, saying that Gaga “shines in a provocative prison musical” and: “[director Todd] Phillips and [co-writer Scott] Silver have delivered the last thing anyone expected: a socially responsible Joker movie that finds an intriguing way to explore the consequences (both on and offscreen) of the first film. Joker fans shouldn’t cry too hard though – Warner Bros. have cleverly found a way to leave the door open a little for the franchise to continue, should the need arise.“

Last month, however, Phillips suggested that Folie à Deux is likely to be the final film in the Joker franchise: “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies, but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”

The album, meanwhile, will be Gaga’s first since 2021’s ‘Love For Sale’, a collaborative album with the late Tony Bennett – her last solo studio album was 2020’s ‘Chromatica’. She’s previously revealed plans to release a new album of original material in 2025, describing it as LG7 – her seventh album – as opposed to ‘Harlequin’, which she’s calling LG6.5.

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