Lady Gaga may play Harley Quinn in Joker sequel with Joaquin Phoenix

Joker, a Martin Scorsese-esque DC movie delving into the psychology of Batman’s greatest villain, came out in 2019 to thunderous applause and huge box office bank: this thing made over a billion bucks, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

With those kinds of returns, you know that Warner Bros. wanted a sequel. But that could be tricky, because Joker wasn’t your average sequel bait superhero flick; it was weird, dark and very personal, the kind of movie it was hard to think of serving as a foundation for a franchise.

But director Todd Phillips is having a go at it. The other week, we learned that the sequel had a title: Joker: Folie à deux. “Folie à deux,” for reference, is a psychiatric term used to describe two people who share an identical mental disorder. Literally translated, it means “a madness shared by two.”

Joker: Folie à deux is a musical that may star Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn

When you think of the Joker sharing a madness with someone, only one character comes to mind: Harley Quinn, his on-again, off-again partner who at this point is nearly as dangerous and iconic as he is. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, in talks to play her is…Lady Gaga.

Gaga, of course, is best know for her music, from “Bad Romance” to “Born This Way” to “Rain on Me.” She’s also been getting into acting more and more over the years, earning plaudits for her turn as the Countess on American Horror Story and an Oscar nomination for her work in A Star Is Born. And she may be uniquely suited to play Harley Quinn in this new movie, because it’s apparently a musical.

I know! Lady Gaga could play Harley Quinn on the big screen and the sequel to Joker is a musical; that’s a lot of information in a short span of time. I say why not? The first Joker movie did something new with comic book movies we hadn’t seen before, giving the story a realistic grit Zack Snyder could only dream of. It sounds like Phillips is still thinking outside the box.

Harley Quinn has been played before in the movies by Margot Robbie. For all we know, she’s still playing the role, but the first Joker movie took place in a sideways universe that doesn’t connect to, say, the Suicide Squad movies, so there’s no expectation that she would carry over. Plus I don’t know if she can sing.

There’s no release date for Joker: Folie à deux yet, but things just got more interesting, didn’t they?

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