The talented and charismatic duo, together with director Todd Phillips, received an 11-minute standing ovation during the world premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux.
Joaquin Phoenix brought back the Joker to Venice Wednesday night, September 4, for the much-awaited world premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux, this time with his Harley Quinn, Lady Gaga, by his side.
Gaga was also joined by fiancé Michael Polansky, not only for their red carpet debut after four years together, but also to make their engagement official. Mother Monster stunned in a breathtaking black Christian Dior haute couture gown complemented with an avant-garde and unbelievably ornate Philip Treacy headpiece. Polansky, meanwhile, matched her in an understated tuxedo.
As the lovebirds posed on the red carpet, spectators caught a glimpse of her gargantuan engagement diamond. The ring—an eight-carat, oval-cut diamond solitaire set in platinum—is reported to have a price tag of USD578,000.
Gaga and the entrepreneur and Harvard alum have been dating since early 2020, with the Bad Romance hitmaker making their relationship Instagram official with a post in February of that year. In an interview, she referred to Polansky as “the love of my life.”
Phoenix, Gaga, and director Todd Phillips — who was in Venice with Joker five years ago, winning the festival’s coveted Golden Lion award—received an 11-minute standing ovation from a mesmerized audience.
The applause was interspersed with joyful chants of “Ga-ga, Ga-ga, Ga-ga!” and shouts of “Gaga, we love you!” The Grammy award-winning actor-singer blew kisses to her adoring fans, thanking them profusely when she wasn’t being made to giggle by her co-star throughout the ovation.
In a press conference ahead of the premiere, Phillips said “it feels correct” to be back in Venice to debut his sequel, but he admitted he was “more nervous” the second time around.
They have a tough act to follow for sure, with the first installment raking in over $1 billion at the worldwide box office and clinched for Phoenix an Oscar Best Actor. It also held the record for highest grossing R-rated film until Deadpool & Wolverine dethroned it a few weeks ago.
The Joker sequel is competing again for the festival’s main prizes against a formidable roster of films, the likes of which include Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, Pablo Larraín’s Maria, and Halina Reijn’s Babygirl. The awarding ceremony will be on the final day of the festival on Sept. 7.
In the movie, Gaga stars as Lee, who would later become Harley Quinn, a patient at Arkham State Hospital, the psych institution where Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is a maximum-security prisoner. They soon get romantically involved when Fleck joins a music therapy group. Lee sees the Joker in Arthur, and seeks to bring the alter-ego back out of him.
The talented and charismatic co-stars have nothing but praises for each other, with the pop and fashion icon describing working with her Oscar-winning leading man as “a breeze.”
Both Phoenix and Gaga sang live for the film, with a pianist just off camera who, she said, felt like another actor in the scene in a way, as per a report by the Associated Press. The duo also had to learn various choreography for several scenes.
Gaga is keeping a packed schedule. Apart from Folie à Deux, she performed at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, dropped “Die With a Smile” with Bruno Mars in July — the track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 — and she’s now teasing her seventh album, the first single of which arrives in next month.
Joker: Folie À Deux also stars Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener, and is set to hit theaters in the US and UK on October 4.
