Lady Gaga Stayed in Character 'a Lot More' Than Joaquin Phoenix on Joker 2 Set, Reveals Director

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix were fully committed to embodying their crazed Joker characters.

In Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to 2019's hit Joker, Gaga, 38, enters the picture as the obsessive asylum inmate Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, a.k.a. Harley Quinn. Phoenix, 49, is back as Arthur Fleck, now facing the death penalty and engaged in a twisted romance with Lee.

Director Todd Phillips told Variety that both actors took their roles "seriously" and Gaga remained in character mode sometimes more often than Phoenix, who won a Best Actor Oscar for the role in the previous film.

“I don’t even really know what Method means. Does he take it seriously? Does she take it seriously? Hell yeah," explained Phillips.

"But he doesn’t stay in character 24 hours a day. With her, I’d say she does a lot more of that than he does. But as a director, I’m in favor of whatever it takes to get them to the place they need to be."

Gaga told the outlet Joker: Folie à Deux, which has musical elements and more stylistic surprises, is a "very big swing with this whole concept and with the script," giving the film "audacity and complexity."

They also discussed making Gaga's Harley Quinn into a grittier, realistic take on the character.

“The high voice, that accent, the gum-chewing and all that sort of sassy stuff that’s in the comics, we stripped that away,” said Phillips. “We wanted her to fit into this world of Gotham that we created from the first movie."

Phoenix previously opened up about his dedication to the Joker role in 2019, when he said at a Venice Film Festival press conference that he lost 52 lbs. for the part. "It turns out that affects your psychology. You start to go mad," he said of the physical transformation, per The Hollywood Reporter.

In 2021, Gaga addressed her approach to Method acting while on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert promoting House of Gucci, for which she stayed in an Italian accent while filming.

"There's a sort of idea around Method acting that it's crazy and that we're crazy," she said at the time.

"But I think that for those of us who commit ourselves to Method acting there's something about us that is just fully committing ourselves to the art on a cellular level. That we're deeply entrenched in this immersive experience. I feel it when I sing, I feel it when I make music, and I feel it when I'm acting."

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Gaga gave insight into her Joker role in May, when she told Access Hollywood, "My version of Harley is mine, and it's very authentic to this movie and these characters."

"I don't want to give anything from the movie away," she added. "I think it's really something you have to experience in the theater."

The A Star Is Born actress added, "I loved working with Joaquin, I loved working with Todd. I've never done anything like I've done in this movie before, so it's all going to be completely brand new and really fun."

Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters Oct. 4