Todd Phillips Explains His Approach To Harley Quinn In Joker: Folie à Deux

Director Todd Phillips previews the return of his DC franchise with Joker: Folie à Deux​​​​​​ featuring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck once again. While the world waits for James Gunn's DC Universe to begin, Warner Bros. Discovery is revisiting a different DC property with Phillips' Joker universe coming back to theaters this fall. With the Joker: Folie à Deux release getting closer, the highly-anticipated DC sequel will not only continue Arthur's story but also feature the introduction of a very new take on Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga.

One of the biggest aspects of Joker: Folie à Deux is the musical elements that are being explored in the sequel, hence the casting of Lady Gaga as the iconic DC character. With the Joker sequel's "Folie à Deux" translated loosely to madness for two, Harley and Arthur will take a new approach to the love history that exists between their characters in the DC canon. The Joker: Folie à Deux cast will also introduce a new iteration of Harvey Dent into Phillips' universe, as Arthur's trial also factors into the story.

Screen Rant recently sat down with Phillips for an exclusive interview to give the audience a new taste of Joker: Folie à Deux, as it is less than two weeks away from arriving in theaters. Throughout the interview, Phillips opened up on the interesting challenge to explore his Joker universe once again. Phillips also added where they got the idea to bring Harley Quinn into Joker: Folie à Deux​​​​​​.

Director Todd Phillips Teases Joker: Folie à Deux Expanding Arthur Fleck's Story

"We love working together, obviously, but we just wanted to spend more time with Arthur."

Screen Rant: Joaquin isn't the type of dude to do a sequel, and from what I know or from what I read, he wanted to do a film that scared him like the first time around. What was it about Arthur Fleck's journey that really captivated him to want to tell more of his story?

Todd Phillips: You'd probably have to ask him that, but all I know is that oftentimes when you make a movie, at least in my experience, you are counting down the days for the movie to be over because these days are long. And oftentimes, on the very last day of shooting, we all have champagne, and we hug each other, and we're happy.

On the first Joker, Joaquin and I were really sad, and that never happens. We just didn't want to leave Arthur yet. We really love that character. We love working together, obviously, but we just wanted to spend more time with Arthur. So I think that was a big part of it, honestly.

This is a bold, creative direction, and you've said you're addicted to risk. This film really pushes the creative boundaries and the limits of what the Joker is. Did the success of the first movie give you more license to go bold and push that creative direction, and how far did you get in mapping out this possibly being a Broadway show?

Todd Phillips: [Laughs] Joaquin said that, didn't he? We did jokingly talk about it before Covid came, and because we wanted to do something just so weird and not necessarily a movie, but we didn't get very far. It was a fun conversation. Obviously, the success of the first one gave us the ability to even talk about making a sequel, and what you said to start the interview, which is, I don't know that Joaquin's going to show up for just a regular layup.

As you say, sequels could sometimes be layups, which is fine. They'd be like, 'Hey, this worked last time. Let's do it.' That's not going to be what Joaquin shows up for. So we wanted to do something challenging and another thing you just said, which is what do we do this for, but to take risks. Work hard and take risks, that's sort of the job description.

Todd Phillips On How Harley Quinn Became Part Of Joker: Folie à Deux

"We really wanted to play with the idea of vulnerability, which is not something you really see so much..."

I love this adaptation of Harleen. I think that there are elements that comic fans will pull from that are definitely from the comics and the animated series. But can you talk about putting this real-world lens on her and how we ended up with this character in the film?

Todd Phillips: We hadn't planned on making it necessarily Harley Quinn, and as we were digging deeper into this love story and this idea of someone who was in love with Joker and maybe not all that gung-ho about Arthur, it one day came to us of going, 'Well, what if we just did our version of Harley?' All due respect to the versions before, it has nothing to do with those. We love those and those intimidate us. So that's part of the reason to go in an entirely different direction alone.

But we really wanted to play with the idea of vulnerability, which is not something you really see so much with the boldness of other Harley Quinns. That's kind of where it came from. And in the same way that I could never compare Joaquin's Joker to the 5 million Jokers that came before, I would never want to compare her because it is her own thing, our own thing.

More About Joker: Folie à Deux

From acclaimed writer/director/producer Todd Phillips comes “Joker: Folie À Deux,” the much-anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Academy Award-winning “Joker,” which earned more than $1 billion at the global box office and remains the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. The new film stars Joaquin Phoenix once again in his Oscar-winning dual role as Arthur Fleck/Joker, opposite Oscar winner Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”). “Joker: Folie À Deux” finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.