Joker: Folie à Deux director explains why he cut Lady Gaga’s same-sex kiss from the film
The Joker: Folie à Deux director cut a same-sex kiss scene. (Getty)
Joker 2 has recently hit cinemas with mixed reviews, and the film’s director Todd Phillips has addressed why he cut Lady Gaga’s same-sex kiss from Joker: Folie à Deux.
Warning: Joker: Folie à Deux spoilers ahead.
In the movie, which has not had the most glowing reviews, Gaga plays a fellow Arkham Asylum resident alongside Phoenix’s Joker, awaiting trial for his crimes committed at the end of the first film. The pair end up embroiled in a very bad romance indeed after their eyes meet during a music therapy session.
Paparazzi pictures previously captured the actress, who plays Harleen “Lee” Quinzel in the follow-up, planting a kiss on another woman on the set of the movie musical thriller. However, fans who have already watched the movie will know that the moment never quite comes to fruition.
The moment would have taken place prior to one of Arthur Fleck’s (Joaquin Phoenix) court scenes. After Lee was released from Arkham State Hospital, she attended the courthouse in support of Arthur.
The star serves a song and dance number before she enters the building, but the original version would have seen her going past a group of protesters on the steps before kissing one of the women in the rally group.
Phillips told Entertainment Weekly that he decided to axe the queer-coded moment because “it just kind of got in the way of the moment”. Sigh. He said that the scene originally “had dialogue in it,” but “all of a sudden, I wanted it to be more of a music and vibe moment”.
“For that moment to have played, it needed dialogue behind it. Meaning, the woman said something, and then Gaga stopped and did this thing, and it just kind of got in the way of the moment.”
Even Gaga and Phoenix struggled to hold in their true feelings about the final edit of the film after an awkward interview moment went viral. The Joker actor said to Good Morning Britain: “Oh God, it’s so hard to talk about… I feel like we achieved what we set out to do.”
Joker: Folie à Deux is out in cinemas now.
