Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga are opening up about the physical transformations they underwent to film The Joker: Folie à Deux.
“I’m not going to talk through specifics of the diet, because I just think nobody wants to hear that. But this time, it felt a bit more complicated just because there was so much dance rehearsal that we were doing, which I didn’t have last time,” Phoenix, 49, said during a Venice International Film Festival press conference on Wednesday, September 4, per Variety. “So it felt a bit more difficult, but it is safe . . . I’m now 49, I probably shouldn’t do this again.”
Phoenix, who stars as The Joker/Arthur Fleck in the DC origin films, declined to offer further details about his Folie à Deux weight loss but said that Gaga, 38, had a similar experience. (Gaga, who sat beside Phoenix at the press conference, plays Harley Quinn in the sequel.)
“Stefani also lost a lot of weight,” he said, using the pop star’s birth name. “I remember when I first met you in rehearsals and then you went away and when you came back, you lost a lot of weight. It was really impressive.”
According to Gaga, she thinks that the two actors “transformed into [their] characters over a period of time” and sought to “hone in every kind of detail.”
Phoenix had similarly lost weight for the first Joker film, revealing in 2020 that he lost 52 pounds for his role in the 2019 movie. At the time, Phoenix explained that he mainly ate lettuce and steamed vegetables to slim down.
“I know I was responsible last time for talking about it, but it’s difficult to do so that becomes your obsession because you’re working the entire time to get to a certain weight,” Phoenix recalled on Wednesday. “So then you end up talking about it, and then it just sounds like an actor going on and on about how much weight they lost.”
He continued, “By the end of that [press tour] run, I was so sick of myself and angry at myself for making such a big deal about that part because you just do what you’re f–king supposed to do. So this time I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that.’”
Phoenix and Gaga are debuting Folie à Deux at the film festival, which director Todd Phillips said “feels correct” to do so.
“It’s a lot easier to come into something as an insurgent than it is as the incumbent,” Phillips quipped during the press conference. “There’s definitely a sense of more nervousness with this second one.”
The Joker: Folie à Deux hits theaters Friday, October 4.
