Next year will bring the debut of Joker: Folie a Deux, the sequel to the billion-dollar Joker movie. This time around, Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck / Joker will be joined by a surprising co-star, Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Gaga has been filming on the sequel for several weeks now, and broke the Internet with the first official look at her in character. Apparently, Gaga’s filming on Folie a Deux will be impacting her career in another way, as she will not be performing at this weekend’s Academy Awards. As Oscars executive producer and showrunner Glen Weiss confirmed during a press conference on Wednesday, Gaga will not be performing “Hold My Hand”, her nominated song from Top Gun: Maverick, due to filming on Folie a Deux.
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“We invited all five nominees,” Weiss revealed (via Variety). “We have a great relationship with Lady Gaga and her camp. She is in the middle of shooting a movie right now. Here, we are honoring the movie industry and what it takes to make a movie after a bunch of back and forth…It didn’t feel like she can get a performance to the caliber that we’re used to with her and that she is used to. So, she is not going to perform on the show,” Weiss said.
What is Joker 2 about?
Joker: Folie a Deux will be a musical that follows the twisted romance between Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck / Joker and Gaga’s Harley Quinn, with a lot of the film reportedly taking place within Arkham Asylum. The film will also feature appearances from Zazie Beetz, Brendon Gleeson, Catherine Keener, and Jacob Lofland.
“It makes me so happy, because I said from the very beginning that all I want is for Harley Quinn to be one of those characters, the way Macbeth or Batman, always gets passed from great actor to great actor,” Margot Robbie previously said of Lady Gaga taking on the role. “It’s kind of like someone gets to do their Batman, or someone gets to do their Macbeth. I feel like, in not so many cases, are they female characters – Queen Elizabeth I, but beyond that, which I got to have a crack out as well, which I was honored to do. I was like, ‘Wow! Cate Blanchett did Queen Elizabeth I. Now I get to.’ It’s such an honor to have built a foundation strong enough that Harley can now be one of those characters that other actors get to have a go at playing. And I think she’ll do something incredible with it.”
Are you excited to see Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie a Deux? What do you think of her having to skip the Oscars for it? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Joker: Folie a Deux is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on October 4, 2024.
