Co-stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga discuss singing live for 'Joker: Folie à Deux,' at Venice pre

(4 Sep 2024)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Venice, Italy - 4 September 2024
1. Joaquin Phoenix, Todd Phillips and Lady Gaga take seats at press conference
2. L-R pan Joaquin Phoenix, Todd Phillips and Lady Gaga
3. Wide shot panel
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Todd Phillips, director - on returning to Venice with sequel:
"It feels right. It feels correct to be back in Venice. It felt like the logical launching off point for us for this second film. We have a very strong feeling towards Venice and what happened last time, not just obviously winning the festival, but just the way the film was treated. But I will say on this one, I'm a little more nervous, and I think it's a lot easier to come in to something as the insurgent as opposed to coming in as the incumbent. And so there's a lot more expectations on a second film. And so, yeah, there's a there's definitely a sense of more nervousness than I had with the first one."
5. Wide shot panel
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Joaquin Phoenix, actor - on singing for the movie:
"Initially we started off with some references where, you know, I had Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr and these, you know, legends and I think we started kind of trying to emulate that sound, or at least I did, before we realised like, wait a second, this is not this is not who Arthur is. Might be who Joker wants to be. And so that was, I think a point, at least for me, where it felt like something really clicked where we took these standards and decided to do kind of our own understanding of them or interpretation. And Gaga was really, should I call you Gaga? I can? Sorry, Stephanie was really early on, she was like, oh, we're going to sing live. And, I was like, no we're not. You can sing live if you'd like, but -
(Off camera) Lady Gaga: "We did sing live"
Joaquin Phoenix: "And ultimately we did, yeah. And it was really the only way. I mean, not only did we sing live, but, every part of the recording was live. We didn't sing to completed tracks or to click track. We were working with a pianist, you know, on set. So each take was a different version of the song and of singing the song. So that felt really exciting, I think it created an energy that was was necessary, or at least, I felt."
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Lady Gaga, actor and recording artist - on relearning singing technique for the movie:
"I wouldn't necessarily say that this is actually a musical in a lot of ways it's very different. The way that music is used is to really give the characters a way to express what they need to say, because the scene and just the dialogue was not enough. So, like Joaquin said, we did a lot of this live, and in a lot of ways, the pianist that was on set with us was sort of like an actor, off camera, in the scene with us. And, we worked really hard also on the way that we sang. And for me, 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."
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Joaquin Phoenix, actor - on whether his dream had inspired the movie:
"The dream did not inspire the movie . The dream was just - I had this dream that was performing as Joker, doing songs. And I just called Todd, because I thought there might be something there, and there wasn't."
9. Wide shot panel
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Joaquin Phoenix, actor and Lady Gaga, actor and recording artist- on losing weight for their roles:
(off camera) Lady Gaga: "I did. Yeah, I did."
11. Wide shot panel
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Lady Gaga, actor and recording artist - on last minute changes to learned choreography on set:
13. Wide shot press conference ends







Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...