Joker: Folie à Deux Director Says Team Would Re-Write Scenes on Napkins Before Shooting

Joker: Folie a Deux is heading to theaters next month, and the film is bound to be controversial. As a follow-up to one of the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time, Folie a Deux carries the complicated history of that movie with it, as well as the pressure of putting on a sequel to such a success. Filmmaker Todd Phillips, along with stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, seemingly understood this as they set out to film the second Joker movie…and apparently, that meant cleaning up the script all the way up until cameras were rolling.

According to Gaga, the trio would “often” do major rewrites while on set. While Phillips is a little less broad about it, he does admit there was a lot of rewrites — sometimes being done hastily on a napkin when it’s all that was at hand.

“We’d very often meet in Joaquin’s trailer and sometimes we would just tear the script up and start all over,” Gaga told Vogue. “It was a really cool, liberating process.” 

“My line about Joaquin is that he’s the tunnel at the end of the light,” Phillips added. “You think, Okay, this scene works, let’s just go shoot it. And Joaquin’s like, ‘No, no, no, let’s just have a quick meeting about it,’ and it’s three hours later and you’re rewriting it on a napkin. What’s great about Lady Gaga is that she really holds her own both off camera when we’re in the trailer tearing things apart — which she probably spent the night before learning — but also on camera. It was not a small feat.”

The first movie ended with Arthur headed to Arkham, and in the second movie, he will meet Lee Quinzel, a fellow patient with whom he builds a special bond. Whereas the traditional Joker/Harley relationship was built around Joker manipulating his therapist and driving her mad, this new take isn’t quite so conniving.

Originally created in Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn began her existence as little more than a foil for Joker. She took on a life of her own in the comics, particularly during DC’s 2011 “New 52” reboot. Harley got her own book during that era, written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, and established many of the personality traits that have carried over into more modern adaptations of the character. Since 2011, she has appeared in three live-action movies — Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, and The Suicide Squad — and had her own acclaimed animated series on Max.

Joker: Folie a Deux is set for an October 4 release date.