Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, and Joaquin Phoenix all went method to embody the Clown Prince of Crime to varying degrees of success – as in, two of them won Academy Awards and the other became mercilessly mocked for years – but Lady Gaga diving deep into bringing Harley Quinn to life for Joker: Folie à Deux could end up going one of two ways.
On one hand, the singer and actress was incredible in A Star Is Born and fully deserved her Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but her much-vaunted talk of remaining in character for months on end to play Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci saw her become something of an accidental meme.
According to cinematographer Lawrence Sher in a recent interview, he didn’t even meet Lady Gaga – or Stefani Germanotta – during production because she refused to be acknowledged by either of those names.
“I didn’t know Stefani at all. Strangely, I felt like I never even met her, even during the makeup/hair tests. Because again, maybe it was my philosophy of not trying to get in their space. And then I remember for a week, being like, god, I feel like we are disconnecting. Not even connecting. We are like on opposites. And I would say to my crew, ‘Jesus, I can’t, like, crack it. She either hates me or we hate each other. There’s something weird going on here.’
I barely said anything, except I would say, ‘Stefani, this is where your second team was, minor little things,’ and then the AD at one point said, ‘Oh you know, Stef would like if you just called her Lee on set.’ And I was like, oh, 100 percent, and I literally said, the next thing I said, was something ‘Lee,’ and it was like everything changed. From that point on, it was like she was… our whole connection changed. I was like, alright, cool.”
Gaga demanding to be called “Lee” dredges up unfortunate memories of Leto’s commitment to staying true to the Jester of Genocide in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, but as the sequel to the highest-grossing R-rated release of all-time that became a surprise awards season favorite, let’s hope Folie à Deux doesn’t see her falling into the same traps.