The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with
Joker: Folie à Deux
director Todd Phillips.

Joker: Folie à Deux
follows Arthur Fleck post-Arkham, with a romantic twist involving Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
During this interview, Phillips discusses using IMAX in the film and the editing process of Joaquin Phoenix’s diverse performances.

In 2019, Joker did to Hollywood what the Joker does to Batman: reigned chaos. The film shocked us with its gallows humor and violence. It flipped the box office on its head with the downbeat, grungy fable taking in hundreds of millions of dollars as an R-rated, stand-alone comic-book film — with no hero. After all was said and told, the film was nominated for a slew of Oscars and took home two, one for score, and the other for Joaquin Phoenix’s iconic performance. Now, Academy Award-nominated writer and director Todd Phillips is back with Phoenix (and tons of surprises) for the next chapter of Arthur Fleck’s life story, Joker: Folie à Deux.

Joker: Folie à Deux arrives two years after the events of Joker. Now a patient at Arkham State Hospital, Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) falls in love with fellow inmate Harleen Quinzel (played by Lady Gaga). The two experience life as a maniacal musical as Arthur’s followers build a movement to free him.

Before the film’s official theatrical release, Phillips sat down with Collider’s Steve Weintraub to discuss Joker: Folie à Deux, why editing Phoenix is an absolute dream, his brotherly relationship with cinematographer Lawrence Sher, and why the sequel only has select scenes in full frame IMAX. You can watch the conversation in the video above or read the transcript below.

COLLIDER: I really want to say — and I mean this sincerely — I so appreciate the boldness and what you did with this movie. I would rather see this movie than 100 of the same movies I see again and again. I just want to say thanks for fucking going for it.

PHILLIPS: Oh, cool! Thanks for saying that.

For real.

PHILLIPS: Yeah, I believe you.

I think it’s actually great that your film and Megalopolis are coming out around the same time because they’re both big swings that are pushing forward.

PHILLIPS: I agree, I’m excited about it. I like that you said that. Thank you, Steve.

I love IMAX. I know that the film has 54 minutes of expanded screen. I know you shot with all IMAX the whole movie. How did you and Lawrence [Sher] figure out what of the movie would be full frame IMAX? Did you debate doing the whole movie in full frame?

PHILLIPS: No, we didn’t debate doing the whole movie in full-frame because we think that while a lot of audiences don’t even notice when you’re going from 2:2 to 1:9, they feel it. I could literally turn to somebody I go to the movies with and go, “Oh, that was cool when it did this and that popped out,” and they go, “What are you talking about?” They didn’t even know it happened, but they felt it. So, if you’re gonna do the whole thing out, well, then you’re missing that whole [claps hands] of it happening, of the aspect ratio change. I think that’s the benefit. We have a lot of tools with which to paint as directors. When you shoot for IMAX in that regard, that’s another tool, that moment where it goes, you know what I mean? So yeah, we didn’t debate it.

Image via Warner Bros.

Which role ended up being the toughest to cast and why?

PHILLIPS: I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t find that we had any roles that were hard to cast because casting, to me, is like talking about which tools to paint with. Casting is basically 75% of a movie. It’s kind of my favorite part. I don’t know. I don’t know if there was anything hard. I was thinking it was like, “Oh, I hope Brendan Gleeson does this.” There’s stuff like that, but it’s not hard.

Editing Joaquin Phoenix’s Performance Is A Dream
Image via Warner Bros.

I’m fascinated by the editing process, so let’s talk about that. You get in the editing room. The thing that’s fascinating about Joaquin is every take he does, he delivers something different. When you’re in the editing room, I’m just curious, what’s it like trying to craft the performance when he’s giving you so much in every take?

PHILLIPS: It’s a dream for a director. It’s what you want, and, quite frankly, a lot of actors do do that. Maybe not to the extent that Joaquin does, but you always want to try different things. You certainly wanna give them an environment and a freedom that makes them feel safe to do those things. I think Joaquin, with me, really feels that. So for me and Jeff [Groth], who I edit with, we’re in heaven when we go through Joaquin’s stuff. Because there is no set way, and it’s like, “Oh, this is feeling like the scene before it. I wish there was another way to cut this.” Well, there is, because we have these “Take Sixes” on each one that are entirely different and will give it a whole different meaning or energy or emotion or whatever the thing is. So what it’s like is, it’s an absolute dream really.

I don’t know who you show an early cut of the movie to, but what was it like the first time you showed the film to friends and family or people you trust? How did it feel because this is such a different movie? What did you learn from those early screenings, if anything, that said, “Oh yeah, I might need to tweak that.”

PHILLIPS: Yeah, there’s always that. We learned a lot. People you wouldn’t know, but it’s people that I kind of work with peripherally. They come in, and we go, “Hey, look at this scene,” or “Look at this reel.” Oftentimes, we’re showing a couple of reels, and then finally, we’re showing the movie. Most of it is as basic as, “Did you understand everything? Did that make sense? Blah, blah, blah.” Or they’ll say to you, “I kind of felt like it dragged at this time,” and we try to excise that scene or cut quicker around it. I mean, it’s all very basic.

The Visual Language of ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’
Image via Warner Bros

Let’s talk about working with Lawrence. He is a very, very, very talented cinematographer. What is it like going into this one when it came to talking about the colors you wanted to go for and how you wanted to frame things? Did you wanna use things that you did in the first film, or did you wanna go radically different?

PHILLIPS: We wanted to keep the language of the film the same, obviously, for when we’re in Arkham or with Joaquin, with Arthur. In the fantasies, we wanted to create a new language, but the conversations with Larry never stop. So it wasn’t like, “What were the conversations like?” Because we start talking while I’m writing, and we literally are talking the whole time. I’ve worked with him now for 15,16 years. He’s the first call I make when I decide I’m gonna write a script or I’m writing with Scott [Silver]. He’s the first guy I’ll call and go, “Hey, I’m thinking maybe we’re gonna go in November. Are you gonna be around?” And if he wasn’t around, then I would go in February when he is around. I would literally move the schedule for him. We just have a great shorthand, and we love getting into it. We love challenging each other, we love trying different things, and working with different equipment. I don’t know. He’s my brother in all of this stuff, I would say.

Yeah, he’s fucking awesome.

Joker: Folie à Deux hits theaters and IMAX on October 3.

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