When Lady Gaga was first hired to portray Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel in the cover song-filled sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, she probably didn’t expect her onscreen leading man Joaquin Phoenix to tell her to dampen her famous three-octave mezzo soprano pipes.
‘She encouraged me to sing live and I encouraged her to sing poorly,’ the 49-year-old former child star admitted in the 38-year-old pop diva’s Vogue cover story on Thursday.
‘I remember asking her to sing without her vibrato. She has a beautiful vibrato — too beautiful. I think she felt naked without it. But as soon as she moved away from technique she unlocked her character’s voice.’
Lady Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) explained how she tried ‘to undo all my technique’ while method on the set of the R-rated jukebox musical featuring the duo’s renditions of MGM standards and tracks by Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees.
‘It was a lot about kind of unlearning technique and forgetting how to breathe and allowing the song to completely come out of the character,’ the Die With a Smile hitmaker revealed at the Venice Film Festival press conference on Wednesday.
When Lady Gaga was first hired to portray Harleen ‘Lee’ Quinzel in the cover song-filled sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, she probably didn’t expect her onscreen leading man Joaquin Phoenix to tell her to dampen her famous three-octave mezzo soprano pipes
Lady Gaga – who scored a $12M paycheck – described her pyromaniac, Arkham State Hospital patient character as ‘an adult woman who sings like a little girl.’
‘Since Lee is not meant to be a polished singer, Gaga tamps down her vocals into a raw, scratchy sound. But in the handful of scenes where fantasy liberates her in full-throated glory, the movie soars right along with her,’ THR’s David Rooney wrote in his review.
‘Some will complain that Gaga is criminally underused in the movie. But as much as it cries out for more of the extravagant numbers where the singer-actress gets to shine, Lee does have a full character arc. Any more of her probably risked tipping Folie à Deux into a Harley Quinn origin story.’
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich gave the $200M-budget, 138-minute movie a C- grade and blasted director Todd Phillips for ‘stubbornly refusing to let the film’s songs have any material effect on the real world or vice-versa.’
‘It’s interesting to note that [Arthur Fleck/The Joker] prefers to sing romantic ballads while Lee tends to lead with songs about strength and power, but it certainly isn’t interesting to watch, as most of the tunes are pared down into dull cabaret arrangements and shot against the black void of the characters’ shared imagination,’ Ehrlich wrote.
‘For two supposedly unhinged psychopaths who are meant to be enabling each other’s madness, Arthur and Lee don’t have a scintilla of creativity between them.’
Thus far, Joker: Folie à Deux has a 61% critic approval rating (out of 44 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.
Joaquin scored a $20M paycheck to reprise his Oscar-winning role as the emaciated comedian, who goes on trial for his psychopathic crime spree which resulted in the deaths of seven people.
The 49-year-old former child star admitted in the 38-year-old pop diva’s Vogue cover story on Thursday: ‘She encouraged me to sing live and I encouraged her to sing poorly’
Joaquin (R, pictured Thursday) continued: ‘I remember asking her to sing without her vibrato. She has a beautiful vibrato — too beautiful. I think she felt naked without it. But as soon as she moved away from technique she unlocked her character’s voice’
Lady Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) explained how she tried ‘to undo all my technique’ while method on the set of the R-rated jukebox musical featuring the duo’s renditions of MGM standards and tracks by Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees
The Die With a Smile hitmaker revealed at the Venice Film Festival press conference on Wednesday: ‘It was a lot about kind of unlearning technique and forgetting how to breathe and allowing the song to completely come out of the character’
Lady Gaga – who scored a $12M paycheck – described her pyromaniac, Arkham State Hospital patient character as ‘an adult woman who sings like a little girl’
Phoenix scored a $20M paycheck to reprise his Oscar-winning role as the emaciated comedian, who goes on trial for his psychopathic crime spree which resulted in the deaths of seven people
Thus far, Joker: Folie à Deux has a 61% critic approval rating (out of 44 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes
Joker: Folie à Deux – hitting US/UK theaters October 4 – also features Zazie Beetz, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and Harry Lawtey
The 1981-set first film Joker made history in 2019 as the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, amassing $1.079B at the global box office despite mixed reviews
Joker: Folie à Deux – hitting US/UK theaters October 4 – also features Zazie Beetz, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and Harry Lawtey.
The 1981-set first film Joker made history in 2019 as the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, amassing $1.079B at the global box office despite mixed reviews.
The Oscar-winning songwriter notoriously had a dubious Italian accent in her last acting role as the real-life, hitman-hiring Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s 2021 drama House of Gucci.
But Lady Gaga scored a Golden Globe Award for best actress (mini-series or TV film) for her role as Elizabeth ‘the Countess’ Johnson in FX’s American Horror Story: Hotel, which aired in 2015-2016.
The 13-time Grammy winner has been hard at work recording her next studio album – dropping in February – and she’ll release the first single in October.